


Until the End of Time

by MellifluousMagpie



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jealousy, Loss, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26885971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellifluousMagpie/pseuds/MellifluousMagpie
Summary: To save him, to get her life back, she would do whatever it took. Even if that meant traveling through time and space. Even if that meant having to relive the past. But the burden of knowledge is a heavy one, and things prove difficult when she’s drawn to her future husband like a moth to a flame...and it doesn’t help that he can't seem to stay away from her either.
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 82
Kudos: 159





	1. Love Me, Lights Out

Marriage is the material and immaterial union of two people. If it's a marriage born of love with your soul-mate, then it's even more. That kind of marriage is a union of two halves of a spiritual whole, and it's the solidification of your completion in the face of society, a completion of a void felt or unfelt that has existed for each person's entire life.

The ceremony is superfluous. What matters is the meaning of marriage itself, the exchanging of the vows, and that you're formally promising yourself to another person until death.

Only when she said the words did Bonnie understand the weight of that promise.

The younger version of herself had romanticized the idea of marriage. Like most other girls, she'd simply hoped to marry the love of her life, build a family, and have a house with a picket fence. But when she grew older and more jaded, she began to doubt she would ever have the opportunity. Between the supernatural crisis that constantly occurred and dying more than once, she had thought her time on earth was limited. In those days, she didn't dwell too hard on marriage, only wistfully thinking that it would be nice if she one day could. Even after everything settled down and she was free to live her life, it was still the last thing on her mind. But when she started to spend more time with Damon, when she started to fall in love with him, the idea gradually began to float along the peripheral of her conscience. And even then, it didn't take form until he actually proposed.

She would have been happy to spend the rest of her days with him as an unmarried couple. It was enough knowing he was hers and she was his. But once he proposed, the joy she experienced was only matched by one other moment in her life.

Of course, with him being him, he had pulled out all the stops, sparing no expense. He did that often and with no regard when he was in a particularly romantic mood, so the surprise trip to Florence hadn't taken her off guard. The historical Italian city was one of her favorite places they'd been, and they'd been numerous times, so she suspected nothing when he told her to look pretty and treated her to her favorite restaurant and shops in the city.

Afterwards, they had returned to his villa in the countryside where he took her into the center of the expansive gardens for an exquisite dinner at sunset overlooking rolling hills of green. At the time, she had side-eyed the string quartet, buying his excuse of further enhancing the already beautiful atmosphere, but she should have known something was up. By this point in their relationship, Bonnie was used to his bouts of extravagance, but this was slightly more extra than usual.

Goading her into a dance when they finished eating, they had swayed against one another as the quartet played a lovely classical piece. She'd been leaning against his chest, watching the sunset, and he'd been watching her when the proposal slipped from his lips with no preamble. Marry me, he said, and Bonnie thought she was hearing things on the wind. Repeating himself, he'd dropped to one knee in front of her with a short declaration of love and a boyish hopeful look on his face as he pulled a small black velvet box from his pocket.

Bonnie was shocked to say the least. They had only discussed marriage once before, neither one of them really seeming to care for it because they knew how they felt about one another, but Damon explained that he wanted to give her this moment, this life milestone, and he wanted to be able to call her his wife.

It took a second, but the shock gave way to elation, to a blushing grin at the yes he said when she asked if he was serious. Her eyes went to the ring, perfect and not too much, a simple but elegant round brilliant cut diamond framed by two leaves that tapered off into a pave diamond band. She held out her left hand, heart swelling as he slipped the ring onto her finger and it fit perfectly. And something clicked inside of her then, a hope and excitement, a realization that she might have wanted this, a marriage with Damon, more than she thought. At the time, the prospect of it had her smiling airily until Damon reminded her that she hadn't verbally said yes yet. With a roll of her eyes and a beaming smile, she quickly remedied that and practically launched herself at him, kissing him until the rest of the world disappeared into oblivion.

The only other time she had experienced such sharp and overwhelming joy was on the day of their wedding. Walking down the aisle to meet him, unexpectedly seeing a light sheen over his aquamarine eyes as he stared at her, steadfast and unwavering like she was the only woman in the world.

Damon would deny he ever came close to crying, but Bonnie knew the truth and her heart would warm every time she thought of it. She shed her own tears over the exchanging of the vows, his written ones professing her to be everything he ever wanted and needed in life. And when she finally said I do to the promise to have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death do them part, she meant it with the most profound poignant conviction behind those two words. His assuredness mirrored her own, a weight simultaneously light and heavy falling over her as they promised themselves to one another forever.

Fifteen years had passed since that day.

Somehow, they were still happily married, and their life consisted of a normalcy Bonnie never thought they would be able to attain. They built a life together in the suburbs of New York just outside the city, Damon running a few bars while she worked in marketing and owned her own apothecary on the side. They were successful and lived comfortably in part because of Damon's wealth, but Bonnie was making a substantial amount of money through her own work as well. Sharing everything equally, they didn't want for anything.

That's not to say that marital life was not all flowers and rainbows and happiness though. With both of them being stubborn, they argued occasionally, like any normal couple. But the arguments never lasted long because they loved each other enough to work through their issues. They understood each other on a fundamental level and knew how to communicate with the other. Because of that the push and pull of their relationship was easily mendable when one went too far or didn't go far enough. And after every time they made up, Bonnie was ever more grateful that he was her husband. She loved him with every fiber of her being, and at this point she wouldn't change anything about her life with him for the world.

Letting go of her ruminations, she turned towards him and brushed a hand through his silky dark hair while he slept beside her. She was half sprawled atop him, her face resting in the crook of his shoulder while one of her legs hung over one of his. A sated smile spread across her face. Their fifteenth anniversary was the day before and they had worked each other to exhaustion.

Never had she ever thought she would love this man as much as she did, and that they would be celebrating fifteen years of marriage together. It still amazed her after all this time how much she did still love him, how she would do anything for him and he for her. She couldn't imagine living without him, which was a far cry from how she felt when he first came strolling into Mystic Falls, wreaking havoc on everyone's lives. How far he'd come from that broken desolate man made her smile grow wider as she planted a kiss on his stubbled jawline.

He stirred, his blue eyes opening and head shifting to bring his lips to her forehead. His gaze was warm as it settled on her and he brought his hand up to brush a wild strand of hair behind her ear. "Good morning beautiful," the low rumble of his sleep-ridden voice was already planting naughty ideas in her head, but there was no time for that this morning. She had taken off work the day before so she had to go in.

"Good morning." She shifted her hand down his shoulder, and as if Damon could sense her intentions to leave the bed, he rolled slightly towards her and slipped his arm around her waist, making sure she couldn't. Giving in, she leaned into his embrace and they both relished in the skin to skin contact, her nipples hardening as they brushed against his solid chest. She brought her lips to his neck, and his hand slid down her back with a feather light touch until it landed on her ass. He pulled her against him until his hardness was brushing against her stomach and before she knew it, his hand had slipped under her thigh, and he'd maneuvered himself between her legs.

"Damon," she gasped. Her nails dug into his shoulder as he rubbed against her. "I'll be late." She turned her head around to look at the clock on the wall. The seven-ten position of the hands stared back at her. She needed to be at work by eight forty-five, nine at the latest, and it took twenty minutes to get there.

"Take the morning off," he whispered into her skin. The heat of his length against her was beckoning, and the temptation was almost impossible to resist. But unlike him, Bonnie was tired from the night before and a bit sore.

Her fingers squeezed his shoulder again. "You know I have an important meeting this morning, and I already made them push it back so I could take off yesterday."

He paused his movements. As he moved his head back to look at her, Bonnie raised her head to give him a peck. "Later."

"Now," he pouted, hand trailing back up her thigh to settle on her lower back. He tightened his arm around her waist and playfully nuzzled his nose against her cheek.

She giggled, running her hand down the arm around her. "You're insatiable."

Staring down at her, he grinned. "When I have a wife as breathtakingly gorgeous as you, can you blame me?"

He loosened his hold on her enough for her to roll out of his embrace and sit up. She slid to the edge of their king-sized bed and stood, brushing a hand through the tangles in her shoulder length hair. Feeling his eyes on her, she turned to look at him. He was stretched out, leaning on an elbow with his head resting on his hand. The heated way his eyes roamed her naked body tempted her to jump right back into bed with him.

"Shower?" He asked hopefully.

She rolled her eyes as she walked over to the bathroom door. "Last time I let you shower with me in the morning, we both got carried away and I was thirty minutes late."

"I promise I'll be good." He was getting out of the bed as he spoke and she watched him stalk towards her, eyes drawn to his hardness. She licked her lips.

"It's a shame I can't promise the same."

He grinned. "I'll be good for the both of us then."

Damon came up behind her as she walked through the threshold into the bathroom. Turning on the shower, she stepped in and he stepped in behind her. As the water pelted her body from the front, his hands slid down her slick torso from behind, and he slipped the soapy washcloth from her hand to his. "Let me," he said, and began to run the washcloth across her back. His touch was reverent and loving as he moved from her arms to her shoulders to her neck and down the length of her chest. He paid close attention to her breasts, and Bonnie leaned her back against him as he pinched and teased, but just as she was getting ready to half-heartedly complain about the distraction, he moved on lower to her naval. She sighed as he brushed the cloth low on her stomach, dipping it in between her legs to wash her sex. He was good about it, not playing with her like he had with her breasts, then he turned her so she faced him and he knelt before her. Her hand brushed through his hair affectionately as their eyes locked and reaching around her, he ran the cloth over her ass, a smirk pulling at his lips when he gave her a playful squeeze that made her smile widen as well.

As he finished and stood up, she leaned in to kiss him, meaning only to give him a quick one, but deepening the kiss anyway and letting her hand trail across his torso and towards his hard-on. The moment she gripped it, he let out a low groan, and she pumped him slowly twice before his hand covered hers to stop her.

"You're going to be late," he said, pulling back to grin at her again.

"Mmm," she pulled away, mad at her boss for having this meeting, mad at the company for existing.

Making sure she was rinsed off, Bonnie jumped out of the shower ahead of him so he could take care of himself, and she could get ready. Grabbing a towel off the rack, she started the rest of her morning routine, brushing her teeth and doing her daily skin-care. At forty-six, she didn't look a day over twenty-three according to Damon, but that was because she used herbs to curb the effects of aging. It was hard not to be worried about her appearance when her husband was a vampire and still looked like he was twenty-five.

She touched the outer corner of her eyes where a line of crows feet would be if she was aging normally, then closed up her moisturizer and exited the bathroom. As she wandered through their walk-in, picking out a suit for work, Bonnie heard Damon get out of the shower. In nothing but a towel, he met her in their closet as she was slipping into a pencil skirt, her eyes running down his chest appreciatively before she continued getting dressed. He was done in less than a second while she headed back into the bathroom to do her hair and make-up.

When she came out twenty minutes later, Damon wasn't in the bedroom. She found him in the kitchen where he had warmed a bagel for her, and was spreading some cream cheese across the top. The smell of coffee filled the air, and he turned as she approached.

"Thanks hubby." She pulled the coffee pot out and grabbed her mug.

His nose scrunched a little at the cute pet name she knew he wasn't particularly fond of because pet names were his thing. He wouldn't complain though because even after all these years, he secretly loved it any time she referred to him as her husband in any capacity. "You're welcome wifey."

She grabbed one half of the bagel off the plate he made for her and ate it right there in the kitchen. Checking her watch, she still had five minutes before she needed to be out the door. Munching on her warm cinnamon bagel, Bonnie watched her husband move between the refrigerator and the microwave as he made his usual cup of O-negative. When the blood was warm, he leaned on the counter next to her, drinking while she ate.

"So how did I do last night?" He asked, an eyebrow tipping up on his forehead.

She glared at him from the corner of her eye, knowing he was only asking so she'd boost his ego even more. "You know exactly how you did. I'm still a little sore."

He tsked at her, smile spreading wide as his eyes darkened. "I wasn't talking about the sex. I was talking about the gift and the dinner. But I must've done a number on you if your mind is still in the gutter."

Damon had gotten her a sentimental gift this year, a water color painting of her favorite picture of them done by one of her favorite artists. Bonnie always struggled on figuring out gifts for him, so she simply got him an engraved Jaeger Le-Coultre watch. He had seemed to like it at least and was currently wearing it as he sipped his blood. For dinner they had picked one of their favorite upscale restaurants in the city, and the food had been divine.

"I'll admit it was an amazing night as far as anniversaries go."

That didn't seem to satisfy him. "Next year, for our sixteenth anniversary, we'll have to take a trip."

"I still can't believe we've been married for fifteen years." Bonnie said as she drank some more of her coffee.

He looked annoyed. "You've said that every year since the third one without fail. I don't know why you're still surprised. I'll never stop loving you." The way he said it so casually made her insides warm, or maybe it was the coffee. Still, she hid a smile as she took another bite of her bagel.

"I should head out." Bonnie checked her watch again and left her unfinished plate, knowing Damon would finish the half bagel left for her. She put her coffee down beside the plate.

Heading towards the door, she stopped by the hall closet to grab a light beige duster to put on over her suit. It was early spring weather outside so the temperature was still a little low. After straightening out the lapels, Bonnie grabbed her purse and work bag sitting next to the closet and turned around to find Damon approaching her. He grabbed her hand, entwining their fingers and pulled her into his chest. She smiled as he leaned down to kiss her until she was left feeling lightheaded, then pulled her against him into a tight hug. "I expect you to make good on your promise of later," he said into her ear, lightly squeezing her waist.

It really did amaze her how when things were good between them, which was almost all the time these days, it was like they never left the honeymoon phase of their marriage. "Do I ever disappoint?" She had pulled out her most sultry voice, letting her breath fan against his ear in turn.

She could feel the shudder that past through him. "Never," he said, and pulled back to kiss her again once, then he went in again for a second kiss.

"Mmm, don't forget though, we are supposed to go out with the Andersons tonight."

He frowned. "Shit. I forgot all about that, do you think they'll be mad if we cancel. There's a contractor coming about remodeling one of the bars and I don't know how long they'll be."

Bonnie sighed. "I'll call Lola."

"Tell them we can do dinner this weekend."

"Alright." Her arms unwrapped themselves from his neck and glided down his shoulders and over his arms. He loosened his grip from around her waist and she stepped away from him, letting go with her right hand, but letting her left hand trail down the rest of his arm until his hand caught hers. Arm slightly outstretched as she reluctantly stepped even further away from him, he gave her a reassuring squeeze followed by a slight tug as if he could barely resist the urge to stop her from leaving. After another long second, her hand slipped from his and back to her side. Bonnie wanted to sigh again at the thought of going to work.

"I love you, shnookums" he said, trying to get her to smile once more. It worked as the corners of her mouth curled upwards and she rolled her eyes. His blue eyes were warm when she looked back at him.

"I love you more, pumpkin." His nose scrunched again at the pet name and she grinned as she reached to open the door, but as soon as her hand touched the metal she heard a rumbling sound.

She stood still on solid ground, but the rumbling escalated until earth felt as if it was shaking underneath her feet. Her first instinct was to think it was an earthquake, and she looked back at Damon. "Bonnie, what's wrong?" He stood there as if nothing was happening, but something was off about his appearance.

"Don't you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Panic gripped her as he was beginning to look transparent. Bonnie blinked, thinking she was imagining things, but if this was a hallucination, it wasn't stopping. "What's happening to you?" She went over to Damon, trying to touch him to make sure he was still there, and she could but she could no longer feel him. "Oh god, what's happening? Damon! Damon!"

He opened his mouth to say something and then, just like that, he disappeared before her eyes and she couldn't feel him at all, a void left where he once was.

She blinked again and it was like her world fell off its axis. Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she sank to her knees, her work bag and her purse falling from her arms. There was a stillness in the air where she wasn't sure if she could see or hear anything, but her eyes and ears were open, and she was both seeing and hearing everything around her as normal. Her mouth moved, and vaguely, she could hear herself calling for Damon but her voice was far away.

What just happened? She could hear herself asking the question in alarm as her mind began to burn. Eyes wide, the sensation intensified. Her brain was on fire and her head felt like it was splitting in two. She was screaming, but she couldn't hear herself at all anymore. Nor could she feel the way her hands gripped her head or sense the ground beneath her feet. All she felt was the splitting pain of her headache and the fire engulfing her mind. She could swear her consciousness was trying to rip apart at the seams.

Ready to pass out, she teetered, her eyes closing, but an image of Damon flashed in her mind and for some reason she held on to it. It was as if she instinctually knew that if she let go, she would be letting him go, and she couldn't. Damon, who had just disappeared before her eyes, was half of her heart, half of her soul. She loved him with every fiber of her being and she needed to save him. Bonnie held onto that feeling, onto her connection with him, and she endured until the flames around her mind died down and her consciousness stitched itself back together.

Normal sensation returned slowly. Her mind still tingled, and she was hyperventilating when she came back into herself, her eyes clamped shut. Slowly, she let go of her head, loosened her eyes, and opened them. She saw double for a moment until her vision fixed itself, and she was looking at the spot where her husband had been standing. "Damon?" There was a hole in her chest when she uttered his name, an emptiness that had never been there before.

From out of nowhere, a deep sorrow filled that emptiness, threatening to suffocate her. She looked around their home as tears filled her eyes, and steadying her hands on their hard wood floor, she used them to rise to her feet. Still in a pair of black pumps for work and still recovering from whatever just happened, she lost her balance a little bit and stumbled against the wall. "Damon?" She called again, but she knew he wouldn't be there, she knew he was gone. She had seen him disappear.

She searched their home anyway, wandering around the rooms, noticing that some things were different and the painting he had done of them was no longer sitting against the wall of the hallway waiting to be hung. His clothes were no longer in the closet either and there weren't any pictures of them along the wall anymore. Above the mantle, she stared at the spot where their wedding photo used to be for a long time, knowing that everything was wrong and not able to consciously register what any of this meant over the dread and grief welling up inside her.

Returning to the living room, her hands shook as she pulled her phone out of her purse. There was only one person she could think to call and scrolled down the contact list to press the button beside Caroline's name. She would help her figure out what was going on.

Her best friend answered on the fourth ring. "Bonnie! Hey, how are you?" Her voice was bright and cheery, and in the background Bonnie could hear the noises of people shuffling around her workplace.

"Care-" Bonnie started, her grip tightening around the phone. She took a deep breath, trying to remain calm.

"What's wrong?" Intuitive as always, Caroline could tell simply from the tone of Bonnie's voice that something was off.

"It's Damon."

"Damon?" She sounded confused in a way that heightened Bonnie's anxiety.

"He's just disappeared, Caroline." Her voice wavered as she tried to hold back her tears, as she continued to try to remain calm. "He disappeared right in front of me. One second he was there, then he was gone! He wouldn't have left, and I can't find him. I don't- I don't know what's going on. It's like he's-" Bonnie cut herself off, unable to finish.

"Are we talking about Stefan's brother, Damon?" Caroline sounded even more confused.

Bonnie was full-on panicking now, her anxiety soaring. She was no longer able to sound even remotely calm. "Yes Caroline! what other Damon would I be talking about!"

"And you're saying Damon was just in your house?"

Why was she saying that like it was odd? "Of course he was just in the house. We live together. He's my husband. He's been my husband for fifteen years. Tell me you know that, Caroline. Please tell me you know that." There was desperation in her voice, a need so strong for all of this to be a dream. Her sanity was riding on Caroline's answer.

As if she knew, Caroline's voice was gentle and hesitant, like she wasn't sure what ground she was treading on and whether it would break underneath the weight of her words. "I…that's… not possible. Bonnie, Damon's been dead for a very long time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi,
> 
> I was going to wait to post this until I finished my other fic, but I just felt like sharing early to see if this was something people might want to read.
> 
> This one is also going to be another slow burn and a pretty long time travel AU, which I've always wanted to do because some of my favorite fics are time travel AUs and I love the idea of one person going back in time and knowing everything. I also wanted an excuse to write a fic within the confines of the show, which will hopefully be a little bit easier than creating a plot mostly from scratch lol. And as for which part of the show I'd be starting from, well, I'd be revealing that in the next couple of chapters.
> 
> Also, as you can see, this started off on a sad note and I feel like I should warn people right off the bat that Bonnie is going to be dealing with grief, guilt, and trying to rationalize putting herself through bs for a while. So if you're looking for something lighter and don't want to read about that and/or can't be patient to see how she gets past that and finds happiness again, then this is not the fic for you and you should probably not read this. But if that is something you're interested in, then by all means, keep reading, and maybe drop a review or comment to let me know if you do want me to continue this!


	2. You've Left Me in the Dark

A numbness settled over her. Bonnie couldn't even feel the tears that began to fall from her eyes. Sorrow twisted in her gut, and she fell to the couch beside her. All that earlier dread was encompassed by the onslaught of grief swallowing her whole. It had made sense why she was feeling the way she did. Even if her mind hadn't known, her heart had, but she still couldn't accept anything that Caroline had said as truth. In her mind, it wasn't possible. "What do you mean he's been dead for a long time? How is that possible when he was just here!" Her voice was laden with anguish. It was easy to tell she was crying and two seconds away from hysteria. "He was just here, Caroline!" She insisted.

There were rustling noises in the background, the sound of papers moving and fabric brushing against fabric. "Don't do anything, Bonnie. I'm heading over there right now. Stay calm until I get there. We'll figure out what's going on, okay."

She wiped the tears from her eyes, trying to pull herself together. "Okay," Her voice was small as Caroline hung up the phone.

Running a hand through her hair, she stood and paced the room and then looked around again. She found herself wandering through the house once more, searching for any sign of him and finding none whatsoever. It was as if he had never lived there, as if their life together had never existed.

She returned to the living room and picked up her phone. Scrolling through her contact list again, she paused when she passed D, going back up to search for Damon's number and not finding it in her phone at all. Another piece of evidence against her sanity. She sat back down on the couch, her eyes wide, her hands gripping her hair tightly at her temples as she struggled to accept the apparent reality of things. This was insane. She was going insane. How was he suddenly gone from her life? And if what Caroline said was true-

No, no, no. She backtracked from that. It couldn't be true. This was some sort of spell. It had to be. All she had to do was figure out what it was, and then she could reverse it.

Bonnie was in the study frustrated while looking through a grimoire that was proving to be useless when Caroline finally arrived. The door was still unlocked from this morning, and Bonnie was startled when she heard it opening and her best friend's voice call out to her. Standing up and closing the grimoire, she walked out of the study and down the hall to find both Caroline and Stefan in her living room. Caroline was hanging her jacket up in the closet while Stefan waited beside her. Their heads both snapped towards her when she appeared.

In the second Caroline took to assess her state, she was walking over to her and wrapping her into a hug. Bonnie hadn't looked at herself in the mirror, but she knew that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy from crying and that her make-up was a mess. The moment Caroline's arms went around her shoulders, she wanted to start crying all over again.

"Thank you for coming. I don't understand what's going on," Bonnie mumbled over her shoulder.

Caroline squeezed her reassuringly. "I know," Bonnie latched on to the calm in her voice. "We'll figure this out. I brought Stefan to help too." Releasing Bonnie and grabbing her hand, her best friend guided her over to the couch. She sat down, keeping Bonnie's hand in hers while the other adjusted the end of the long-sleeved navy blue suit dress she wore. Leave it to Caroline to drop everything at her job to be the supportive friend. Bonnie wasn't sure what she would do without her.

Stefan followed them and sat on the other side of her, a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and a gentle look in his eyes. "Walk us through what happened," he said.

Bonnie turned towards him, leaning slightly into Caroline's shoulder. Her voice shook as she explained the events of that morning. "Damon and I woke up and got dressed. He made me a bagel and coffee, which I ate, and then we were saying goodbye to each other before I left for work. I was about to walk out the door when I felt something like an earthquake, and when I turned back to look at him, he was becoming transparent. I couldn't really feel him when I went to touch him, and then he just…" His face flashed in her mind, the confused look in his eyes as he vanished. "He was gone. After that I experienced an intense headache for a few minutes and when it finally died down, he still wasn't there. And now it's like all traces of him have disappeared from my life. His clothes, his things, the blood in the fridge, the photos of us that were hanging on the wall, my wedding ring…" She looked down at the ring finger of her left hand where it should've been and let go of Caroline's hand to rub at the spot. Earlier, when she realized that was gone as well, she'd almost had another break down.

Both Caroline and Stefan followed her gaze. "So you're saying, up until this morning, you and Damon were happily married?" Stefan sounded as if he was struggling to wrap his mind around the concept.

Bonnie frowned at him. "Yesterday was our anniversary, Stefan. You should know that. You called him and he mentioned that we were going out to dinner last night."

His disbelief showed in his expression and Bonnie's frown deepened. She turned away from him and back towards Caroline who'd been silent. Bonnie took a deep breath and told herself to focus on the facts, on figuring out what happened to Damon.

"What exactly did you mean when you said Damon had been dead for a long time? When did he supposedly die?"

"He died in our senior year of high school, right after Elena became a vampire," Caroline answered.

Bonnie took a breath, trying to absorb that information, but it wasn't computing. "You're telling me that Damon's been dead for nearly thirty years? How am I supposed to believe that when he was standing right over there this morning, saying goodbye to me before I left for work?" She looked at the last place he stood blankly, so confused as the knot of grief hardened in her chest again.

Caroline ran her hand down Bonnie's arm in a soothing gesture, and Bonnie caught her and Stefan sharing a worried look.

"Are you sure," Stefan started, his brows slanting inward as he turned his gaze back on her, "and you may get upset with me for saying this, but are you sure it wasn't all a dream or some hallucination?"

Her glare was staunch, offended even though it was only natural they might have trouble believing her. "You think I could dream twenty-nine years of a life where Damon lived after when you think he died and fifteen years of marriage with him? I think I'd remember waking up from that, and I don't. Besides, how would I know things about his childhood. Things like how his favorite sweet when he was child was cherry pie or how Damon can play the piano beautifully, but he doesn't like to because he hated the lessons when he was younger. And if that doesn't convince you, I even know about how your father treated both of you, and that Damon used to try and protect you from him. And that one of his biggest regrets besides spending so much time antagonizing you, was what he did to Gail and _thought_ he did to Sarah on May 10, 1994."

His eyes widened over the last few words. "How do you know about..." he trailed off. Bonnie had gotten her point across. Stefan looked shocked that she knew any of that, and she was sure she erased some, if not all doubt that this was at least real for her.

"Whether you believe it or not, he was here and then he disappeared."

With a look from Caroline, Stefan smartly kept his mouth shut while Bonnie tried to reign in her emotions. "If you don't think this was a dream or a hallucination, then what do you think is going on? A spell?" Caroline asked.

"I don't know. He's gone from my life like he never existed and now you're telling me that he died twenty-nine years ago. I'm not even sure what kind of spell would be capable of something like this." She put her head in her hands, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes. "God, I feel like I'm going insane, and I'm sure you two probably think I'm having a psychotic break because there's literally no evidence that Damon was even here except my memory of him."

"You're not going insane," Caroline tried to reassure, "you're just…"

Bonnie stood up abruptly. Caroline's attempts at placation were wearing on her and she was sick of the doubt still emanating from the both of them. "If neither of you believe me, that's fine. You can leave. But I have to find out what happened to him." She moved to step around Caroline who stood up after her.

"Calm down for a second, Bon. Let's talk about this."

Bonnie whirled on her best friend, her hands balling into fists. "Don't tell me to calm down. Imagine if Stefan suddenly disappeared or the twins and no one believed you. The last thing you would be is calm."

"The twins?" It took Caroline a moment to realize who she was talking about. Her brow furrowed. "Do you mean Alaric and Jo's twins?"

There was something about the way she said Jo's name that gave Bonnie pause. "Wait, is Jo still alive?"

"Yeah," Caroline dragged out the word as if it was odd that she thought otherwise.

"Kai didn't kill her and the Gemini coven didn't put the twins into you?"

Caroline eyes bugged out. She looked utterly perplexed by that question. "What are you talking about?"

She should've understood the moment all traces of him had disappeared from her life, but it only just clicked. If none of that happened, it meant that Damon dying didn't just change her life and the repercussions of his death went far beyond her. To not only change the physical world, but to affect people's minds and alter people's memories was unheard of. If this world, one where Damon died twenty-nine years ago, was a dream, hallucination or even an illusion, she was positive no spell could be this far reaching. And if it was, she should be able to tell, shouldn't she? But Bonnie wasn't able to sense any magic at work whatsoever.

"How did Damon die? Who killed him?" she finally asked, even though just thinking about him being dead made her heart sink and sorrow twist in her gut again.

"Stake through the heart," Stefan answered. "We thought it was one of the Originals, but Klaus and the others gave their word that it wasn't them and none of us were able to figure out what happened. There were no trails and no one saw it. They came, killed him, and went like a ghost. After things quieted down in Mystic Falls, I spent three years searching for leads on hunters that could've done it, and I still found nothing." It was plain on Stefan's face that the unresolved murder of his brother still bothered him. She had been so wrapped up in her own emotions. She couldn't imagine how he must've felt when Caroline told him about her suddenly thinking his brother had been alive this entire time.

Bonnie walked over to him and placed a hand on his. "I'm sorry."

His hand balled into a fist underneath hers. "It's fine. I got over my brother's death a long time ago." He didn't look at her as he said that, and somehow Bonnie doubted it was true. This time it was her placing the comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Could both of you tell me what you remember in the months before his death and after?" She asked them.

Stefan nodded.

She sat back down on the couch next to Stefan and Caroline sat back down beside her as well.

He started from the moment Klaus forced him to become a ripper again. Caroline also filled her in on what was going on with her at the time and everything was as Bonnie remembered up until Damon died the day after Elena became a vampire. Things started to diverge then, Elena wasn't sired to Damon, but the hunter still came and they ended up searching for the cure and releasing Silas. Bonnie still died, and they had managed to bring her back, but not as the anchor and so there was no getting stuck with Damon in 1994. There was no Kai. There were no heretics and Lily Salvatore, but Bonnie had still been chased by the Armory, still been the huntress, and had still fallen in love with Enzo who she divorced ten years ago. Caroline and Stefan, on the other hand, were still together and still happily married. Many things were very different, but their lives seemed far more peaceful than Bonnie's.

"Do you not remember any of that?" Caroline asked her.

"Everything before Damon's death I remember, but after that, things are a bit different for me." She launched into her version of things, and Bonnie told them certain details, like how they dealt with Silas, the Travelers, Kai, and the heretics, which Stefan had a lot of questions about when she mentioned his mother's involvement. Then she moved on to the Armory and the huntress, explaining how it all ended. When she finished, she explained her life after, falling out of love with Enzo, realizing she loved Damon and that Damon was in love with her. She had found a way to unlink her and Elena, and even when she awoke, Damon had still chosen her and Elena had gone on to finish medical school and marry one of her colleagues. She and Damon tied the knot a while later, and they had built their life together here in New York.

She thought of last night, of the tender way he looked at her across the dinner table, of how she wanted nothing more than to be able to see him look at her that way again. Tears started to well up in her eyes for the umpteenth time, but she blinked them away.

"What about current events?" Stefan asked, distracting her. And they went over everything that happened outside of Mystic Falls, things like who was elected president, what wars were going on overseas and anything else major that happened. None of it had changed.

"It's like I've been put into a different world, an alternate reality where the only thing that's different is Damon dying," Bonnie said.

"Like we've lived alternate timelines that diverged when he died," Caroline added thoughtfully.

Bonnie went through that line of thought in her head. If that was the case, then this wasn't simply her being transported into a different reality. Every change stemmed from Damon's death, and taking into account the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, a thought occurred to her out of nowhere. It was ludicrous, impossible as far as she knew and yet she couldn't help but entertain the idea. "If it all changed when Damon died, what if- what if someone went back in time and killed him?"

Caroline looked skeptical. "Is that possible?" Stefan asked.

"I don't know, but if it is and that type of spell actually exists, it would require massive amounts of power. I can't say it's not somehow within the realm of possibility though. I mean it explains everything aside from why I'm the only one who remembers Damon being alive."

She thought of the pain in her head, the feeling of holding on to Damon's existence and how it felt like her brain was being ripped in two before pulling back together again. Maybe if she had let go, she wouldn't remember her life with him and she would have become this Bonnie who, as far as she knew, had everything except for a husband or a partner in the way she had Damon before he disappeared. The thought of becoming this Bonnie and not remembering made her heart ache in a strange way. She couldn't imagine not knowing her life with Damon, of never becoming best friends and falling in love with him. Thank goodness she listened to her instinct and didn't let go. Thank goodness she remembered so she could fix this, because she _was_ going to fix this. If a spell did this, a spell could undo this. There was a possibility she could get him back.

Newly determined, Bonnie grabbed her phone off the coffee table in front of them.

"What are you doing?" Caroline watched her unlock the device with another worried look.

"I'm calling a few witches."

* * *

These days, when Bonnie called for something, witches answered. Luckily, her contacts had mostly all been the same. She had garnered some respect in the witch community simply off of her name alone, and it only increased after doing people favors and inserting herself into the massive organization of New York witches.

From the time she first started making calls, it took four days before a friend of a friend gave her the number to a witch that had extensive knowledge of time spells. In those four days, Bonnie ignored all calls and messages from her work and any number that wasn't Caroline or Stefan. Based on who'd been calling her, her job and immediate friends were apparently still the same, and she stopped herself from wondering if anything else was different. It wasn't important. There was only one thing on her list of priorities and that was getting her husband back. So she stayed inside her home, and when she wasn't doing her own research, she was lying in bed, wallowing. Caroline and Stefan had left her alone at her insistence, but Caroline had been calling her everyday to make sure she was okay. Every time she answered, Bonnie told her she was, but every day she spent in this world where Damon was dead made her feel emptier and emptier, like she was a shadow of herself drifting through darkness.

It didn't help that they still didn't seem to really believe her. Maybe they believe that she believed she lived a separate timeline, but they both remained doubtful. It was hard for her to blame them. Without evidence, of course her story was crazy, but she knew it had been real. The loneliness of losing him cut deep, and everyday she woke up thinking he would be beside her only for the confusion, loneliness, and grief to hit her all over again.

It was an odd feeling.

Bonnie was no stranger to loss. She had been abandoned by her mother at a young age. Her grandmother and her father had died. _She_ had even died. And now her husband was dead, but it wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were supposed to grow old together, or rather she was supposed to grow old with him. But he was ripped away from her so suddenly and so out of the blue in such an unusual way that everything about losing him felt unreal and completely wrong. It had been so long since she felt a loss like this, and now that she was slowly beginning to accept that he was actually dead in this world, she wasn't ready for how the emotion cut at her insides, carving out all other feeling until there was nothing but a desolate longing lingering above a vast, barren void inside of her that his presence had once filled.

At one point on the second day, when she thought about everything she had just lost, she fell into that void, and she could swear her heart was literally breaking. Her tears turned into quiet heavy sobs, and her chest hurt so badly that she wanted to pull her heart out and shelve it so that she wouldn't have to feel anything for a while. But Bonnie knew better than that. To cope with the loss of those you love, you had to let yourself feel, you had to let yourself cherish every moment you had with that person, and you had to hold on to how they would want you to carry on. That would be her light in this seemingly infinite darkness. That and the smidgeon of hope that she would be able to undo all of this.

On the third day, she no longer allowed herself to cry. All that mattered was focusing on how she was going to get her husband back. There was no time to lie in bed and wallow anymore.

Then on the morning of the fourth day, she first received a call from Enzo. She'd stared at the phone as it rang, not picking it up. When it finally stopped ringing, he left a message, and she stared at the notification for a long time before she deleted it. Admittedly, she was afraid of delving deeper into this life, of a life without Damon, of trying to flesh out the details of this past. A few days before, she had also stumbled across some scrap books in the study, and she couldn't even bring herself to open those and see the changes. She didn't want to know anymore details about this life, and she didn't need to. Not if she was going to return to her old one.

Another call came through later that morning. It was a witch friend of hers named Iris who informed her that she knew someone who knew about a reclusive witch named Prairie from Iowa who might be able to help her. Iris gave Bonnie Prairie's number and she called her right after.

Prairie answered the phone after the first ring. "Hello?" She sounded young, at least younger than Bonnie, but her voice had an edge to it, a sadness.

"Is this Prairie?"

There was a long pause. Bonnie opened her mouth to check if she was still on the line, but the woman spoke before any words came out. "Yes, it is, and I think I can help you. I think I'm supposed to help you."

"What?"

"Sorry. I have a tendency to…nevermind. You've lost someone very important to you, and you think I can help you get them back." That was not information she had told anyone. When she called the other witches, she had simply expressed a curiosity about magic that manipulated time and asked if anyone knew someone who might be able to do something like that and if they could ask around about it. The fact that she knew that detail meant this witch was a seer and a powerful one if she was able to read her through the phone.

"How?"

"Come visit me and we can talk." Prairie gave her an address in Des Moines, Iowa, then promptly hung up.

The mystery of it all made her distrustful, but she couldn't afford to pass up this chance. Bonnie left immediately, not even bothering to pack a bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful people,
> 
> Firstly, thanks for reading, and thanks to those who left comments last chapter!
> 
> Secondly, in case anyone was wondering, the events of season 8 never happened in this fic and probably never will happen in anything I write because I reject the existence of that season with my whole soul lol.
> 
> Thirdly, I want to mention that there's a song lyric thing going on with these chapter titles because, like the obsessed person I am, I already have a whole playlist of songs that remind me of this fic and give me Bamon feels. The first chapter title was from Beyoncé's XO, and this chapter title is from Florence and the Machine's song, Cosmic Love.


	3. Leave the Wasting World Behind Us

Parking on the curb, Bonnie stepped out of her car and walked up the pathway to the small house in the city. It was a typical contemporary style house with a red tile roof and light blue sidings, a unique design from all the other plain white houses on the block. The other unique thing about the house was that it radiated magical energy from where she stood, and when she opened the gate to the iron fence surrounding the property, the energy only increased. Bonnie had only ever felt this sort of power from massive hot spots and a few witches she'd met before, so it automatically made her uneasy and put her on her guard.

On the porch, Bonnie stared at the dark blue door for a second, adjusting her purse on her shoulder before she raised her hand to knock. Her knuckles met air as the door opened before they reached the wood, and a thin young woman stood there with a short brown bob and eyes a blue so pale they were almost white. "You must be Bonnie," she said, her voice airy and weighted at the same time, still holding that edge Bonnie heard over the phone.

The woman opened the door further in invitation and Bonnie walked inside, glancing around at the older traditional décor. "And I'm assuming you're Prairie."

"I am," she confirmed. "We talked over the phone."

Prairie closed the door behind her and locked it before offering to take her coat. Bonnie shrugged the beige duster off her shoulders and handed it to her.

"Have a seat in the living room and I'll be right with you." With Bonnie's coat still slung over once of her arms, she motioned over to the room towards the back of the house, and Bonnie walked further in, wincing as the old wood floors creaked with her every step. The living room was sparsely furnished with two chairs, a couch and a rug. She took a seat in one of the chairs and waited, letting her eyes wander around the room. There were a few photos on the wall of what Bonnie assumed were family, but her eyes hung upon the collection of grimoires on the bookshelf across the room.

A few minutes later, Prairie walked out the kitchen with a tray of tea and a sandwich. She placed it on the end table beside where Bonnie sat. "I hope you like Chamomile tea, and we should get some food in you. I can tell you haven't eaten properly in days."

Her bare feet were quieter on the floors, and she plopped down onto the loveseat beside the chair, smoothing her hands down her denim jeans. "Thank you for inviting me," Bonnie said politely. Her eyes were haunting, the unnatural shade making Bonnie suspect that she was blind, but she moved around like she wasn't. "Have you lived here all your life?" Bonnie asked as she grabbed the cup of tea.

"What remains of my family has moved away, but this home has been in the family for generations."

"I can tell," Bonnie said.

She smiled mysteriously. "Yes, I was born into a line of rather powerful seers, but that power does have its caveats." She raised a finger to tap the space underneath her eyes, pointing out her seeming blindness. Her hand returned to her leg and she leaned forward a little bit. "So, tell me about what happened to you."

"I suspect you already know." Bonnie brought the tea cup to her lips, taking a sip. Almost immediately, the chamomile had a calming effect on her.

"Now that I see you, so to speak, I do, but a lot of people are put off when I don't allow them to participate in natural conversation. I know you're here about your husband, and that you lost him recently in a strange way."

"I have a theory-"

"About alternate timelines," she finished for her.

"Is that possible?"

Prairie folded her hands across her lap. "Anything is possible with enough magic. You just have to figure out the rules and find the balance. Even you've done the impossible and brought people back from the dead before." Her eyes narrowed. "I can see it in your aura."

"So you're saying it _is_ possible that someone could go back in time."

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"How?"

Regarding Bonnie with a cool expression, she slightly changed the subject. "I wasn't always blind you know, but my abilities as a seer have been exceptional since I was a child. Strong enough that when someone touched me, I could see their past, present, and a bit of their future. As I grew older, my sight worsened, but my power only grew to the point where I get impressions from any sort of interaction with a person, and now when people touch me their entire lives play out before me, and sometimes I see beyond this life."

"What does that mean?"

"I see bits and pieces of different lives a person could live or could have lived if they do or did things differently. Those visions are all a jumbled mess though and very hard to piece together, but they made me fascinated with time. If I could tell a person to do something or not do something, would it change their future? So when I tried it on a few people and it completely changed their readings, naturally, I began to wonder about changing the past as well.

"I started to research spells that would allow me to do so and came across quite a few in one of my ancestor's grimoires. That ancestor, Roman Azarov, was an exceptional seer, saw visions of alternate realities like me and spent a lot of time being obsessed with manipulating time. I won't bore you with explaining all of his research, but one of his spells allowed a person to send their consciousness back to a specific point in time, and like you, there was someone that I wanted to save from dying. So, I used the spell to travel back into the past. Until a few days ago, I thought I had only done it just the once, but…" She looked at Bonnie pointedly, then stretched out her palm towards her. "Give me your hand, I want to do a reading."

Bonnie looked down at her palm and placed the tea cup back on the tray. Slowly, she slid her hand into Prairie's and the seer gripped it tightly in both of hers. The woman's magic enveloped her as she stared off into the distance, seemingly looking at nothing. It could have been a trick of the light, but there seemed to be a slight glow to her eyes as they widened. She sat there, staring at nothing for a full minute. Then she clenched her eyes shut. Her magic retreated back into herself, and she leaned forward, bringing her hand to her head.

"Are you alright?" Bonnie asked, concerned.

She shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm fine. I just haven't done any readings like that for a long time. The amount of information I receive through touch is a lot for me to handle. But I can see that you do remember the timeline changing," Prairie said, letting go of Bonnie's hand. Her face fell into a frown. "And this means that my dreams are probably real."

"Your dreams?" Bonnie questioned.

"My abilities as a seer...they normally don't work on myself. I can't see my own future or past, but lately, for the past few days, I've been having these hazy, disjointed nightmares about my sister being murdered and my brother being threatened by someone who wanted me to do something, but I didn't know what. Now I'm starting to think these dreams are visions or echoes of an alternate reality as my ancestor liked to call them. And I have a strong feeling that it's all connected to what happened to you." She gripped her chin with her thumb and index finger, looking down in thought.

The puzzle pieces started to come together for Bonnie. "You think the person who threatened your family wanted you to send them back to the past, and that you did." That meant this person could be the one who killed Damon. "Do you know anything about them? What they look like at least?"

"I'm sorry. Their face is a blur and their voice is muffled in the vision. I've tried to make them clearer, but nothing works."

"But it really is possible to go back?"

Prairie's gaze hesitantly went to her. "It is."

The little bit of hope inside her began to flourish. "Will you teach me the spell then?"

There was a long pause where Prairie stared at her in silence as if she were assessing her. "I've read your past. I know how much pain and frustration you feel, I know you're a good person, and I know you don't deserve what happened to you. I do feel a sense of responsibility for everything since it's partially my fault that you're in this situation, so I will help you do the spell. I'll help you save your husband from being killed thirty years ago. But in exchange, there's something I want you to do something for me too."

* * *

There were three main ingredients involved in the spell, a sunstone, a moonstone, and a piece of a meteorite. Unlike any sunstone or moonstone she had seen before, an otherworldly energy radiated from them. The meteorite especially radiated a lot of energy, and apparently it was what Prairie had used as the main power source when she did the spell before.

All three stones had been kept hidden by her family for a long time, but she had happened upon them by luck. Her vision was slightly better than it currently was at the time, and she'd been trying to clean out the basement. She told Bonnie something drew her towards them, and she found the stones hidden in a box in a hollowed-out space behind the wall. It was after touching the stones that she began to experience greater visions and began to lose even more of her eyesight, and soon after that, she became interested in time travel and found her ancestor's grimoire. Only then did she understand what the stones had been for.

Bonnie thought about what Prairie had said earlier. "So, if you see visions of other realities, do multiple realities exist at once?"

She paused in gathering vials of herbs to answer the question. "I've often wondered about that as well, but according to Azarov's early notes in his grimoire, with the existence of magic, it's hard to tell because the rules of the universe can be expanded in unnatural ways. We don't know if only one timeline can exist and the future that you lived ceased to exist the moment your husband was killed, replaced by this one…or if a new timeline branched off from the moment your husband died and there is still a you out there living happily with him in the timeline you came from. His findings leaned towards the former and I think what happened to you is further evidence that it might be the former. If it were the latter, your memories probably wouldn't have clung to this version of yourself, and you would still exist in the reality you remember."

She considered what Prairie said. "Why exactly do you think it is I remember the other timeline then?"

Prairie was busy mixing the herbs as she answered. "Love is the strongest emotion, and it can bend the rules of any spell, so the only explanation I can think of is the strength of your bond with your husband. When I touched you, I could feel a part of him still with you, embedded in your soul, and I could feel the way you cherish every memory with him, the good and the bad. That's probably why you still remember." Her expression took on a wistful look. "To be honest, I've rarely felt a love that deep before, and I can only hope I'll find a person who loves me the way he seemed to love you."

"You're still young."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Thirty-three is not that young."

Bonnie's eyebrows went up at that. "I never would have guessed. You look twenty."

She merely smiled and patted her cheek. "You know as well as I do that we witches have our beauty secrets, and it helps that I've always had a baby face."

Prairie stirred the mixer a bit faster, and Bonnie looked back down at Prairie's grimoire. She had let her look over the spell in question, but it was very difficult to understand. It was written in Latin, but many of the words were foreign to her and the complexity of it all was beyond her. This was a level of witchcraft Bonnie had never seen before, and she considered herself a knowledgeable witch. Prairie's ancestor had undoubtedly been gifted.

However, there was one thing Bonnie noticed was missing from the spell. "There is a way back, right?"

The other witch's mixing slowed. "To the future you had with your husband? Well, Azarov never came up with a way back. He was content to relive his life from the moment he went back, but lucky for you, I did."

Bonnie let go of the tension that had risen in her shoulders. Thank god. Getting stuck the day after Alaric died and Elena became a vampire was not a good time to be stuck. She wasn't sure if she could deal with everything that came after that again.

Prairie interrupted her thoughts. "Though I should mention that neither the spell to go forward nor the spell to go back is a one hundred percent guarantee of accuracy, there's still a chance you might get stuck in the past." Staring Bonnie down, her face fell into a serious line. "Knowing that, do you still want to do the spell?"

Bonnie hesitated to answer for a moment.

"I'll continue the preparations while you decide."

Bonnie shook her head, deciding she would cross that bridge when she came to it. She didn't need any more time to decide. "No, I'll do it. I want to go back. Nothing feels right in this reality, and I don't want to live here with all these memories of a different one. I have to fix this and make things right again." Then she paused, frowning. "But you already know I'm going to do it, don't you?"

Prairie's smile returned. "I do."

Bonnie's phone buzzed in her pocket, interrupting them. It was Caroline calling and she stood to leave the room, taking the call in the hallway.

"Hey," Bonnie greeted.

"Are you doing okay?" Caroline always sounded so worried when she called.

Bonnie leaned against the wooden paneled wall, holding the phone to her ear. "I'm fine. Good actually. I…I found a way to save him. I found a way to go back."

"To go back in time? To thirty years in the past? Bonnie, do you realize how crazy this sounds."

"I know Caroline, but I can't give up on him. Damon didn't just die. Someone killed him and ripped apart my life. I can't accept that, and I know he wouldn't either if our roles were reversed."

She blew out a long breath. "I wish I knew the Damon you knew so I could understand."

"I wish you did too. You probably wouldn't believe it, but you two actually started to get along after a while."

"Did hell freeze over?"

That earned a short laugh from Bonnie, the first laugh she'd had since he disappeared. "No, but caring about Stefan gave you two common ground."

She was silent for a moment. "You must really love him." Her voice was soft.

Bonnie let her head fall back against the wall, staring at a spot on the ceiling. "More than anything."

Her best friend let out a long sigh. "As much as I wish you weren't doing this, I have a feeling that I won't be able to talk you out of it."

"You won't." Bonnie assured.

"Then is there anything I can do to help? Do you need me to be there?"

"No, you don't have to come. But I need you to get Stefan to send me every detail he can remember about Damon's death."

"Okay. Call me before you do the spell?"

Bonnie nodded. "I will."

They hung up and Bonnie, put her phone back in the pocket of her jeans.

She rejoined Prairie in the other room. Glancing up at her, the other witch gave her a satisfied look. "With this the preparations are almost complete, but I need a bit more time to prepare the spell to travel back into the future and it's best to do everything in daylight, so we'll do it tomorrow morning."

Hesitantly, Bonnie let a small smile lift her cheeks. Anticipation and hope welled inside her. Tomorrow, she would make her future right again.

Tomorrow, she would save Damon.

* * *

Morning came, and Bonnie woke up disoriented. It took her a few seconds to remember the events of yesterday and that she was in Prairie's guest room, and when her mind cleared, her thoughts inevitably turned to Damon. The ache in her chest whenever she thought of him was still filled with anguish, but since yesterday, Bonnie had grown more optimistic. That wasn't to say there was no apprehension. Bonnie was inherently practical and realistic. She wouldn't allow herself to fully embrace the optimism until the spell worked.

Stefan had called her the night before. He'd expressed his disapproval at her attempting the spell out of concern for her, and Bonnie appreciated that he worried about her, but her mind was set. When he realized how pointless it was to try and convince her to stay, Stefan gave her the details surrounding Damon's death. Before he let her go, he wished her good luck, and hoped that she would be able to save him. Afterwards, Bonnie spent an hour memorizing those details.

In a pair of pajamas that Prairie lent her, Bonnie got dressed in the same clothes she wore the day before. She hadn't brought anything with her when she came to Iowa except her purse, but she supposed it didn't matter since she would be going back to the past. She took her phone off the charger on the nightstand, and went to call Caroline, but she hesitated. Was there any point to saying goodbye? With any luck, she would be seeing the Caroline from her future again and this Caroline, if she still existed, would have no memory of Bonnie sending herself back. Bonnie put her phone back in her pocket instead. She loved Caroline, but she didn't want her best friend to cast any more doubt on whether or not she should do this.

She made her way downstairs where Prairie was already up. She could smell breakfast and walked into Prairie's kitchen to see a plate of waffles and eggs laid out on the kitchen table. The younger witch appeared a moment later with some papers in hand. "That's for you. I already ate earlier."

Bonnie thanked her and took a seat. Prairie took a seat across from her. "You're not having any second thoughts, are you?" the younger witch asked her.

"No." She began to cut her waffles into smaller pieces.

"Good."

"But I do have another question."

Prairie raised her eyebrows.

"If my consciousness is the only thing moving through time, then what will happen to my body once it's gone?"

"Assuming there is only a single timeline, then this version of the timeline will break from the moment you go back, disappear entirely, and reshape based upon the actions you take in the past."

"And the me of the past? What will happen to her?"

"Well, you are her and she is you. There isn't an overlapping divide like the one between the experiences of the current you and the you that was supposed to have lived this future. She is merely a part of your past, so your minds should merge."

Right. All of this was so complicated.

"When you're done, meet me in the living room. I'm going to start setting everything up."

Once she finished, Bonnie met the other witch in the back room. The younger witch was busy drawing white lines on the floor with chalk, creating a large circle with three more smaller circles connected by a line along the radius. Perpendicular to those circles she drew another line along the bottom. Inside the three small circles, she placed the sunstone, the moonstone, and the meteorite. "It's to simulate a syzygy, one of the more powerful celestial events," she explained. "Of course a real one would be better, but between the two of us, we should have more than enough magic to offset the balance."

"Is that all that's needed?"

"Yes. Do you remember everything I told you last night?"

Bonnie nodded. The night before, Prairie had given her instruction regarding her request in exchange for helping her. "I promise I'll save her."

Prairie nodded. "I trust you." She moved towards the lower half of the circle, across from the line of stones. Inside the circle were the papers she had been holding earlier. She pointed to them. "That is the spell to come back. I'll be sending it and the stones along with you."

Moving to the window, she drew the curtains back, allowing the sun to pour into the room and over the lines on the ground. Bonnie realized they had been drawn so the sunlight would hit them, and the lines of the circles aligned with the angle of the sunlight.

"The sun and moon stones are replaceable, but I have bound the meteorite to the earth and it will serve as your anchor to this present. You need it to get back."

Bonnie nodded again. She reached for a cup of something that sat on the table. "Drink this. It's the herbs I mixed yesterday, and it will loosen your mind and enhance your memory." She handed it to her and Bonnie smelled it. Her nose scrunched at the scent. It smelled terrible, but she downed it anyway and put the cup back on the nearby table.

"Now come stand in front of me with your feet on the lower line facing me."

She stood outside the circle across from the line of circles that held the stone.

When she looked at Prairie again, she was suddenly nervous. The other witch must've been able to read it on her face. "Are you sure you want to do this Bonnie? Once the spell begins, there's no room for doubt." She thought of Caroline, reminding herself that she would see her again. Then she thought of Damon, and her resolve strengthened all the more. She focused on him to drown out the nervousness. Her head felt light, airy almost, and the memory of his warm gaze was seemingly at her fingertips, exceedingly vivid in her head. The herbal mixture was taking effect.

"I'm sure." The mission was simple, go back, save Damon, stay a few more days, fulfill Prairie's request, then come back. She could do this.

"Are you ready?" Prairie asked, holding out both her hands.

"Yes." Bonnie took her hands.

"Okay. You'll repeat after me, then you have to imagine the moment you want to return to and hold on to it."

Prairie started with a breakdown of the spell in short Latin phrases which Bonnie repeated. She repeated them until she was able to say them along with her. Then the magic activated, pulling from Bonnie's core. Around her, the white circle on the ground began to glow, and the stones began to rise. Bonnie was aware she was one of the more powerful witches in existence in terms of raw natural magic, but she could feel that power amplified far beyond its limits as Prairie's own magic mixed with hers.

Nothing changed though and all Bonnie could feel was the heavy weight of magic permeating the air around her. She frowned through the chanting, half a second away from saying that it didn't seem to be working when her head began to burn the same way it did five days ago. Fire lit her mind, white light flashed behind her closed eyelids, and the earth rumbled beneath her feet. Bonnie fell to her knees. Something broke internally, and she was no longer sure where she was. The earth stopped rumbling. Her mind began to disconnect from her body, and the seams of her consciousness came undone. She was inclined to resist the unraveling on instinct, but somewhere far away, she heard Prairie encouraging her to let go, to imagine the moment, and to remember.

Everywhere and nowhere at once, she latched on to the thought of Damon. Suddenly, before her, she could see the memories begin to form. Like a movie on a reel, her mind scoured through her memories of him at lightning pace, so fast she wasn't sure what she was looking at. So she reached out and it slowed. At a snail's pace this time, she watched herself see him for the first time, pulling up with Caroline in the car outside cheerleading practice. A skip forward, and then she watched him try to take Emily's talisman from her. Another, and she saw him tearing into her neck. With each memory she could feel her consciousness moving closer, inching towards her past self. But this was too far back. She tried to focus father into the future, but Damon was still on her mind, and it jumped again, all the way to the moment they died together and ended up in 1994. Too far. She panicked, backtracking too much again to the party at the Lockwood Mansion where she first saw Katherine and spoke with Damon in the sitting room.

She was so close to that memory, she could feel the brush of her senses. The way his gaze felt on her, the need to be contrary with him. She lingered in the tension between them before she pushed forward, to the memory of them teaming up to take care of Mason. Her mind became sluggish then, searching for something to grasp onto as the magic of the spell faded. Distress rose in her as she tried to push her memory further forward, but everything became jumbled. Her thoughts of Damon were lost as things slowed down to a snail's pace once more. Time warped, and she swirled into darkness.

When she came to in that darkness, a wall that extended forever stood before her. Stepping towards it, the moment Bonnie thought to touch it, a crack spread, severing the wall into pieces until it crumbled. Piece by piece it fell, until Bonnie stood before her younger self. She looked innocent and world weary at the same time, tilting her head as she regarded the older version of herself.

"This is a strange dream. Are you me?" The younger Bonnie asked.

 _Yes_ , her voice echoed in the space around them until she found her mouth again. "I am you from the future."

Skepticism radiated from the young her, but she decided to play along. "Why are you here?"

"To change the past. To fix things."

Her brows pinched together. "To fix it? What happened?"

"If you let me, I'll show you."

The older Bonnie held out her hand, and the younger Bonnie took it. She let her see her experiences, from the moment she first saw Damon until now. By the time they made it to the beginning of the time spell, the younger version of herself was keeled over in tears and clutching her chest. There was no doubt she was feeling the same heartbreak, pain, and longing the older Bonnie was currently suffering. "Do you see why I've come?"

"Was that real? Is this real?" The younger Bonnie asked, looking up at her older self anew. She wiped her eyes. In moments, she had lived a lifetime, experienced years of contentment and happiness only to have it ripped away. Their shared devastation permeated the space between them, and she could see in her eyes that no more explanation was necessary. The truth of it all was understood when Bonnie shared her life with her.

Still, the pain on her younger self's face made her regret inflicting that knowledge upon her, so Bonnie gave herself an out. "Do you want to remember? Do you want to change things so this never happens? Do you...want to become me?" If she said no, Bonnie was unsure of what would become of this version of herself. Perhaps her consciousness would disappear into a void or maybe she would return to her body in the future. The uncertainty made her nervous, but she didn't let it show on her face.

Her hesitation stretched into a long silence where they simply stood across from one another until the younger Bonnie blinked, and another tear fell from her eyes. "After what you showed me, after letting me feel what you feel, it feels almost impossible to not want what you want. I know what you think of me, and I know that you hate how I've allowed myself to suffer for them and how I will continue to allow myself to suffer. And to be honest, I'm beginning to hate myself for it. But knowing what you've lost is almost a relief because everything you showed me I went through would be worth it if it leads to what you had. And what you feel for Damon of all people…knowing him as I do now, it makes me feel strange to admit it, but I want to know that happiness, and I don't want to forget what you showed me. I…I want to change things."

With that Bonnie's worries were laid to rest. It seemed she was herself after all. "Then let me in."

Locking eyes, the elder Bonnie held out her hand again and this time, when her younger self touched her, their hands faded into one another. They blended together, and Bonnie stepped forward into her. Just as Prairie said they would, their minds merged. Her knowledge and experience were sewed into her younger consciousness, embedded into her being until there was no line between them and in essence, they were the same person.

The darkness turned white, and at once, Bonnie felt her senses return to her. The world trembled again, and she clenched her eyes shut until she no longer saw white behind her eyelids but normal darkness, and the shaking stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T_T My brain legit melted in the process of coming up with the time travel explanation, so forgive me if it doesn't make any sense or confused you. I know magic is magic, but hopefully it wasn't too too complicated. If somebody smarter than me wants to give me advice about it, then I'm all ears, but in the meantime, back to the past we go! Based on the end, I'd love to hear guesses as to where exactly people might think she arrives in the past. :)
> 
> Chapter title from "Plan the Escape" by Son Lux


	4. Where Soul Meets Body

With a deep long breath, awareness came back. There was a bed beneath her. She was lying in it, and it didn't take her long to figure out that she had been sleeping. Blinking her eyes open, Bonnie found herself staring at the familiar white ceiling of her bedroom in her old house in Mystic Falls.

Dizziness overwhelmed her as she sat up too quick, and she clutched at her head. It throbbed, and she remained still until the pain passed. When it did, she rubbed her eyes. Her purple comforter came into focus, and with a glance to the left she saw on top of it beside her were the stones and the paper with the spell of how to get back written on it. It took her a moment to process that it worked, that she and Prairie had been successful.

Bonnie was in the past.

She pushed the comforter off of her, slipping one of her feet off the bed and onto the carpeted floor when she caught sight of the calendar on her wall. The month stopped her in her tracks. It was on April, nowhere near the right month. She stood, stumbling a little as she moved towards her dresser and picked up her old cell phone. Marveling at the relic for a split second, she flipped it open and checked the date to make sure, reading it twice before it sank in that it was only April 9, 2010.

Her stomach dropped. This was all wrong. According to the dates Stefan had given her, she was eight months farther back than she was supposed to be. A string of expletives left her mouth as she immediately tried to remember what happened on this day. Luckily, with the phantom of her younger self in the back of her mind, she found the memories of the past few days closer at hand than she expected.

The most recent situation they were dealing with was the deaths of Luka and Martin, the warlocks who had been working with Elijah to save a witch from Klaus. While using a projection spell to try and undagger Elijah in the basement of the boarding house, the son, Luka, had been burnt to a crisp by Damon with a flamethrower, and the father, Dr. Martin, had been killed by Katherine and had given Bonnie back her powers after taking them a few days before. The original hybrid Klaus was merely a looming threat who would make himself known soon.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and Bonnie snapped back into the present. She looked at the screen and her heart stopped when she saw Damon's name. It was only a text, but her face lit up instantly. Opening her phone and reading the message, he was simply confirming that they were still meeting at the Martin's place in a few hours, but she read it again and again and again, tempted to call just to make sure this was all real, that he was real, and she wasn't hallucinating.

Before she could stop herself, she was pressing the button to dial him and putting the phone to her ear.

It rang, and her heartbeat echoed in her head, beating out of her chest as she waited for him to answer. When he did, she held her breath until he finally spoke.

"What is it, judgey? Is there a problem?" His voice filled her ears, her head, and then her heart. The coldness of his tone was a sharp difference to the warmth she was used to from him, but she was relieved and glad to hear him all the same.

She let out the breath she'd been holding. "No problem," she said lightly. Her fingers tightened around the edges of her phone. Hearing his voice had loosened something inside her, making it easier to breathe. There was still a weight in her chest though, a sense of apprehension anchoring unease, but the hope was firmly there alongside it despite having come too far back.

"Then why did you call?" He questioned, impatient.

_To hear your voice._

That was the truth, but if she said that, she would sound crazy. She came up with an excuse instead. "To… say that I'll see you in a few hours."

"You could've texted that. I'm a bit busy here."

She cleared her throat. "Right. Next time I'll text." She pressed the end call button.

Gripping the phone in her hand, a smile slowly spread across her face. She let herself feel it then, the full force of the hope she had been so hesitant to let in. He was alive, and she would save him. She could do this.

She placed her phone back on the dresser, and walked back over to the bed, staring at the materials for the spell. For a moment, she contemplated doing the spell to jump further into the future, closer to the day Damon died, but there were a couple of problems with that. First, as a consequence of returning to her older self, her magic had weakened drastically from its state in the future. Secondly, after reading the spell, she was certain she wouldn't be able to accurately go to the specific time she wanted without the meteorite anchored to it. The risk would be steep. She could over jump and end up after Damon died. And after the way coming back went, Bonnie wasn't sure the risk was worth it.

With that thought, it was decided she would stay. Her best option was to go along with whatever happened in the past and follow the timeline of events. It was only eight months. She could wait it out or at least that's what she thought at first. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that also came with a whole host of problems, the main one being that she was mentally a forty-six-year-old woman, and everything that happened in 2010, happened twenty-nine years ago. Her memory was bound to be a little hazy.

She gathered up the materials and stashed them away in her nightstand, spelling it shut until she could find a better place to keep them. Then she supposed she should start getting dressed.

Intending to take a shower, Bonnie walked into the bathroom and couldn't help but pause when she saw herself in the mirror. She stared at the younger image of herself, bringing a hand to the smooth skin of her face. Running her fingers along her cheek, her hand moved to grab tendril of curled hair. She turned to look at it then back at her reflection, letting it fall back across her shoulder.

This entire situation was surreal. She was seventeen going on forty-six. Or forty-six going on seventeen depending upon how you looked at it. The differences were subtle though. Everything about her figure was slightly smaller than it used to be or would be. The older she'd gotten, the curvier her curves had become though she had still been slender. Damon had been obsessed with those curves, could barely keep his hands off of them. Hell, he'd been obsessed and head over heels with her in general. But she needed to prepare herself for this Damon to be the opposite, for him to be utterly disinterested in her. She would barely even be on his radar.

Trying not to fret any more over her current relationship with Damon, Bonnie moved over to bathtub and turned on the water. Her shower was a quick one and afterwards, she found herself in front of her closet with a frown on her face. What had she been thinking when she was younger? Bonnie flitted through the hangers, taking in all the earth tones and odd styles she had once thought were cute. Eventually she settled on one of the simplest things in her closet, a plain dark green shirt and a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. She went back into the bathroom and fixed her hair, but whatever she did to it didn't quite feel right either. It ended up in a low side pony-tail, the long curls neatly hanging over her shoulder. She finished up getting ready with a light coating of make-up and once again stared at herself for a long time in the mirror.

Bonnie couldn't get over how the spell had actually worked and that she was young again. It felt like she was herself and not like herself at the same time, like she was wearing a skin that didn't quite fit her. The dichotomy left her feeling almost displaced, like a stranger to herself or maybe a friend she had once known, but had grown apart from.

Being trapped like this for a while was definitely going to take some getting used to.

* * *

The drive over to the Martin's' place was a quick ten minutes, and she could see Damon's car already parked outside. Through her windshield she saw him leaning against the side of it, alive and radiating aloofness with his arms folded across his chest while he waited.

Her nerves descended into a mess on the ride over, and a burst of anticipation flooded her chest as she pulled up behind him and got out, slowly closing the car door behind her. He looked the same as ever, deadly, beautiful and insanely attractive. His hair was a little longer than she liked it, and he wore a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and black boots, a typical ensemble of his. He watched her approach with a neutral look, and she became self-conscious all of a sudden. Heartbeat loud, her body thrummed under his gaze like it always did, and her muscles tensed as it took everything in her not to run to him. Still, without thinking, the corners of her lips turned up, which earned her a strange look, and Bonnie quickly corrected herself. It took some effort, but she managed to school her expression into a neutrality that mirrored his.

Their mirrored expressions only lasted a second until he blinked at her, his head cocking ever so slightly to the left, considering as his blue eyes bore into hers. When he spoke, her heart skipped a beat. "Is it just me, or did you actually look happy to see me for a second?"

She was happy. She was overjoyed really, and she basked in the sound of his voice. Her husband was alive and breathing in front of her. It had only been six days, but it felt like much longer since she'd last seen him, since she'd felt the empty hole his absence had created. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to hold him and feel his steady heartbeat against her cheek. She wanted to kiss him until she couldn't feel her lips anymore, until she couldn't breathe anymore. But she wasn't supposed to want any of those things because he wasn't her husband yet. At this point, she and Damon didn't like each other. They were simply allies, frenemies at best. Their goal was to protect Elena.

Her eyes dropped from his, and her fingers pressed into her palms. "It was just you."

Thankfully letting her blunder go, he looked behind her towards her car as if he were expecting someone else to appear. "I thought you were going to bring Jeremy."

Following his gaze, she cursed internally. Jeremy had been here the first time around, hadn't he? How could she forget? They were in a relationship, and she kept him in the loop with everything. She'd been so distracted by the thought of seeing Damon again, he hadn't even crossed her mind. She wanted to facepalm. Already, she was fucking things up.

"He was busy," she coolly supplied as an excuse despite her slight inner panic.

Damon thought nothing of it and inclined his head towards the building. "Let's make this quick then."

He walked ahead, expecting her to follow.

Bonnie did so, watching his back as she climbed the stairs behind him. More than hearing his voice, seeing him had settled her, lifted more of the weight inside her, and quieted a bit of the ache in her heart, but she hadn't considered how hard it was going to be to remember how much she wasn't supposed to like him or want to be around him.

They reached the apartment door and Damon broke the lock with a twist of the doorknob, swinging it open. The smell of burnt flesh wafted out into the hall, and Bonnie scrunched her nose up in distaste. Checking to see if he could enter the apartment, Damon waved a hand through the threshold.

"Yep. Everybody's dead," he affirmed as he stepped into the room.

She entered into the apartment to stand beside him in front of Luka's body, the vast collection of grimoires on the bookcase catching her eye the moment she looked around. "We should pack up the grimoires. It's clear they've spent years collecting them." In fact, some of them were still in her own collection in the future.

Damon looked over to the burnt corpse in the middle of the floor. Then leaned slightly closer to Bonnie, almost brushing her shoulder. "You know," her head snapped towards his at the proximity of his voice, and all at once she was made aware of the lack of distance between them. Against her will, her body went tense again. She held her breath. Her green eyes momentarily dropped to watch the lines form around his lips as they curled upwards, and she waited for him to say something that would probably be inappropriate. "We could just get another match and cremate him."

She rolled her eyes at the smirk on his face, knowing his intention was to make her uncomfortable and rile her up. He once told her he'd always enjoyed trying to get under her skin, even when they hated each other. "Don't be disrespectful," she admonished, nudging his leather-clad arm with her elbow in a disapproving gesture that was maybe a little too friendly. The old her was never so free with touch around Damon.

He quirked an eyebrow in slight surprise, and she hardened her frown in response. Letting him linger in her space, she held his blue eyes without backing down until his expression dropped. "Fine," he conceded. "I'll bury him." He finally looked away, and the tension released. She turned back towards the bookshelf.

Based upon her memory of the previous day, Bonnie knew what she was supposed to be looking for. She stepped around the room, moving towards the shelves upon shelves of grimoires. But a vibration in her pocket distracted her, and she pulled out her phone to check who it was. When she saw it was Jeremy calling, she held back a sigh. He would have to be dealt with later. Turning her phone to silent, she put it back in her pocket.

"So what is it you needed?" Damon asked.

She motioned towards the wall of grimoires. "One of these has the spell that'll let me harness the energy that's left behind when a witch dies violently. Luka's dad gave me a message saying that if I can find the spot in town where the old Salem witches were burned, I can harness their energy to use when I need it." And if she was going to reenact facing Klaus for the first time, doing that spell was a must.

"Great. We'll have to put that on our list of things to do today. Harness ancient dead witch power," he said.

In the back of her mind she was aware that she wasn't supposed to know where the witches were burned yet, but Damon obviously did. "Since you clearly seem to know where they were burned, it shouldn't be a problem then."

She moved to stand in front of the bookshelf and closed her eyes. Lifting her hands, she mumbled a spell under her breath. A few of the grimoires tumbled from the shelves and fell onto the floor, one of them opening to the page with the harnessing spell. The simple use of her magic took considerably more effort than it should have though, and it irritated Bonnie. She should be stronger than this.

"And there we have it." She picked up the grimoire from the floor, skimming over the spell to refresh her memory of how it worked.

"Great. I'll take care of the body. You grab the rest of the grimoires."

There were a lot of them and carrying them all would be a bitch. She turned to Damon as he was carefully wrapping Luka's burnt body in a blanket. "You won't help me take them out to the car?"

"You should've brought baby Gilbert for that. And besides, can't you just use magic?" She did know a spell that she wasn't supposed to know yet, but she didn't want to test the limits of her energy just to use it.

"No, I can't. It will literally take you less than five minutes." Bonnie folded her arms across her chest, staring him down. He stared right back at her, seeing the stubborn look in her eyes, and she knew that he was thinking about making her do it herself, but she saw the telltale shift in his shoulders, a sure sign that he would relent.

"Fine," he sighed dramatically, and in the three minutes it had taken her to gather one stack and head down to her car, the rest of the books had already been put inside her trunk. When he finished loading up the last of them, Bonnie gave him a perfunctory thank you.

Damon slammed the trunk closed and stepped into her space, her heartbeat drumming a tad faster when their eyes met once more. "You're welcome," was all he said, and in an instant, he was gone, probably not sparing her a second thought.

Bonnie stared at the space where he disappeared and sighed, a forlorn feeling settling in her chest.

* * *

Not wanting to take any more chances with changing the past, Bonnie went to pick up Jeremy from his house after school was over. As she waited in front of the old colonial style home, just being in the neighborhood brought back so many memories of her childhood. It had been years since she'd been back in this part of Mystic Falls, but even longer since she'd last seen the Gilbert House intact. If she remembered correctly, it would only be a year or so later when it's inevitably burnt down by a humanity-less Elena.

She had only been parked outside for a minute when the front door opened and Jeremy bounded out and down the steps, walking towards her car. He looked exactly as she remembered him at this age, boyish and cute and shaping up to be teen heartthrob. He was so different from the last time she'd seen him in the future which was more than ten years ago at Alaric's fiftieth birthday party where Caroline had gone crazy with planning and invited basically everyone Alaric ever knew. He'd had some girl on his arm then and looked good for thirty-two, and their brief conversation at the party was the last time she talked to him. Afterwards, they fell back out of contact.

Opening the passenger side and getting in, he said a quick greeting and immediately leaned over, going in for a kiss. Bonnie panicked, turning her cheek so his lips landed there. Trying not to make the moment any more embarrassing, she ended up giving him a long hug, which felt equally wrong to her. Half because she only saw him as a friend, and half because she only loved Damon. With so many other things on her mind, she hadn't even begun to think about how she was going to deal with being in a relationship with him.

Just yesterday, she could remember her younger self being attracted to him and thinking she could see herself falling in love with him, but today those feelings were null and void. And she would be with Jeremy for a while yet, all the way up until he cheated on her with Anna's ghost. Just thinking about it made Bonnie upset with herself for ever taking him back afterwards. Now she had to sit through months of a relationship with him, stringing him along until he cheated on her. On some level, it was cruel of her, but it was either that or risk changing the timeline, and she wasn't sure how much her relationship with Jeremy mattered in the grand scheme of things.

"So what happened this morning?" Jeremy asked her as she pulled off.

Bonnie relayed the information of everything that happened at the Martins earlier, and while she spoke, she could see in Jeremy's expression that he was trying to pretend he wasn't upset that she forgot to bring him along. Bonnie ended up apologizing to placate him. "You didn't miss much, but I'm sorry. I said I was going to bring you with me and then I completely forgot."

Thankfully, he seemed to let it go.

Eventually, they met up with Damon who led them through the woods towards the place where the witches were massacred. Bonnie found Jeremy's presence was useful then. He provided a buffer between Damon and herself. With him around, it was easier to remember how she was supposed to act around Damon, but still, she found herself glancing at him more than she should.

"Is this the spot Emily Bennett was killed too?" Jeremy asked Damon as they moved through the trees.

"Founders thought it was poetic burning her where the other witches burned."

Descending into silence, a minute later, they came upon the house where the witches were massacred. The dilapidated building was just as Bonnie remembered, eerie, decrepit, and wreaking of ancestral magic.

Walking through the door, they made their way further into the house when Damon halted in his tracks, unable to move. He looked to Bonnie immediately, chuckling sarcastically. "Whatever witchy prank you're playing, don't. It's not funny."

Bonnie merely stared at him. "I'm not doing anything."

He struggled against an invisible force. "I can't move."

A sizzling noise started in the space where sunlight streaked across his skin, and Damon winced. His face was burning.

His eyes flicked down to his hand. "Uh, my ring's not working." He looked back at Bonnie. "Do something," he demanded with an edge of panic.

She closed her eyes, focusing on Damon and counteracting the witches' magic. A moment later, he was able to move.

"I guess this is the right place," Jeremy said.

Irritated, Damon motioned towards the door. "I'm going to go wait outside." He turned and Bonnie's own irritation spiked at his lack of manners.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" She couldn't stop herself from asking him.

He stopped in his tracks and turned back towards her. "What?"

"How about a 'thank you, Bonnie, for not letting me burn to death'," she mocked his usual tone as best as she could.

He eyed her for a long moment, then turned back around and waved his hand dismissively. It was his flippant way of acknowledging her, of him saying thanks without saying thanks because Damon, at this point, was incapable of saying words of gratitude. Please and thank you were not in his vocabulary. At least as far as she was concerned anyway. "Don't you have a spell to do?"

God, he used to be such an ass.

Eyes narrowed at his back, Bonnie watched him until he disappeared through the door, then returned her focus to the task at hand. She asked Jeremy to hand her the grimoire.

They moved to the basement where Bonnie successfully did the spell and harnessed the ancient witch power. The spell itself was taxing, a drain on her psyche as she physically felt a muted version of their fiery deaths. But after she finished, she could feel the undercurrent of power flowing through her, running over her own magic, and it felt good. It felt natural to feel this much magic at her disposal, and yet unnatural that it was not truly hers.

Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of absorbing the witch's power that Bonnie had forgotten was that the surface level of her mind was open to their spirits, and they probed, curious and questioning. Bonnie knew the witches could sense that something was strange with her, that she wasn't exactly who she was supposed to be. And the moment she felt it, she put up a wall, blocking them from her mind. Still, she could feel their suspicion and hear their whispers, one message echoing above all.

If she used too much of their power at once, she would die.

Later, Jeremy ended up prying information about the warning out of her and once again got upset with her for not telling him there was a possibility of her dying from the strain of using too much of the magic. Bonnie couldn't tell him that she wouldn't end up dead from using the power to kill Klaus or that Klaus wouldn't end up dying at all while he was in Mystic Falls, so she lied and told him that she would do whatever she had to do to kill Klaus even if it meant dying.

In the evening, after she was already home for the night, the stray thought passed through her mind that this power was more than enough to go forward in time again, but of course that came with another whole host of problems. if she used the magic to time travel, it would inevitably change too many things. Klaus wouldn't appear at the dance and try and kill her, which meant he might go after Elena even sooner, and Bonnie wouldn't have the magic to take on Klaus nor bring back Jeremy if he still died. Once again, she was reminded of just how stuck she was.

It wasn't all bad though. When she came home hours earlier, she had been greeted with the sight of her father making dinner for the both of them. He said hello to her as she walked into the kitchen and asked her how her day was, but Bonnie froze and couldn't respond. She had known her father was still alive, known she would eventually see him, but she wasn't prepared for the emotional floodgates it would open. Quietly, tears rolled down her cheeks as she dropped her things and moved to his side to wrap him in a hug. At a loss, he asked her what was wrong and she merely told him that she'd had a bad day, but inside, she was elated to see him alive again. He was distant at times, and their relationship wasn't the best, but his death had been one of the hardest for her to deal with, and she was happy to see him for a while, even if she knew he would be off on another business trip soon.

They ate dinner together, and at her coaxing, they watched a show on TV after, her leaning on his shoulder, refusing to let go of his arm. For the first time in a long time, she truly felt like a child, needy for the parental love and attention she had received so rarely, but after an hour, he left her alone on the sofa and went to bed early, having to wake up for work the next morning.

Being around her father left her in a good mood, but when she cleaned up the kitchen and turned in for the night, she laid in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Inevitably, she thought about Damon, about how different and similar he was to her Damon. They were the same, yet not the same, and as much as she told herself it was fine that he treated her with indifference, it still hurt. In her mind, she understood that it made sense, that they hadn't been close, but her heart longed for him, craved to be close to him because she was and would always be deeply in love with him. Sure, during this time he had cared in his way, but Bonnie was not a priority for him. Elena and Stefan were. And there was so much she would do for Elena and for the rest of this town, so much that had yet to come.

She planned to let it all happen. The face off with Klaus alongside having to bring back Jeremy, letting Jenna die and Stefan become a ripper, and then eventually letting Alaric and Elena die and become vampires. The more she reflected on what she had to let happen, the more the guilt settled deeper into her bones, but for once, most of that guilt was directed towards what she was going to do to herself, for the things she was going to allow herself to go through even after she went back to the future. Dying, lying to her friends about it for months, becoming the anchor, then dying again with Damon and being trapped alone with that psychopath Kai. And there was only more to come after that. Throughout her life, she had suffered an extraordinary amount, but what was nine years of suffering compared to the promise of twenty years of bliss and normalcy that would happen after.

She pulled the covers over her head, curling up, and wrapping her arms around herself, wishing that she was back in her bed in New York and Damon was sleeping right next to her. When she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine the weight of him dipping the mattress beside her, feel his hand running along her back, comforting her whenever she had a bad day at work. She held onto that feeling as she fell asleep, bracing herself for the things to come in the following days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Lots more show dialogue incoming, but as you can maybe tell, things are already not happening entirely as they did in the show because I don't know about you, but I can barely remember three months ago, let alone when I was seventeen which was like eighty-five years ago, so I thought it was only natural that Bonnie's memory would be a bit sketchy as well seeing as this is twenty-nine years ago for her.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Chapter title from "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie


	5. I Don't Know What I Knew Before

The next morning, Bonnie received a text from Elena. They were putting the boarding house in her name, and Stefan wasn't planning on going to school. Seeing as he was her usual ride, she needed a way there, so Bonnie agreed to drive her, but it wasn't without reluctance. Avoiding Elena, no matter how much she wanted to, was not an option. She would have to pretend, to play the part of best friend despite not wanting anything to do with her, so play pretend she would.

Bonnie looked back at her closet. Before she received the message, she'd already been in the middle of struggling to chose what to wear, so she threw something on as fast as she could, fixed her hair and make-up, and headed to the boarding house.

When she arrived ten-ish minutes later, her emotions frayed. Pulling up the gray concrete driveway made her unbearably nostalgic. The house was another thing that hadn't changed a bit, and the moment Bonnie stepped out of her car, she was flooded with memories of the past, with memories of Damon. This place was another home to her, would be another home, but for now she was a stranger to its looming walls.

With a deep breath, she steeled herself and walked up to the door. She knocked twice. Seconds later Elena answered it, motioning for her to come inside like she already owned the place. "Hey," her former best friend smiled, genuinely, sweetly. Bonnie forced herself to smile back. "I'm just about to sign the papers." Elena turned back around, leaving the door open for Bonnie to walk in behind her.

As she stepped in and closed the door, Bonnie tried to remember that this Elena was not her Elena, not yet anyway. She didn't deserve the cold shoulder Bonnie was inclined to give her. She had not yet said what she would say or done what she would do. They were still best friends.

In the future, however, they were far from it. Their relationship was complicated to say the least. Bonnie had, after all, taken the guy who was supposed to be the love of her life. And after she untethered Elena's life from hers, the doppelganger had not been happy to wake up and find her best friend and boyfriend together. The resulting argument tore their friendship to pieces, and it was crushed into even smaller pieces when she tried to make a move on Damon behind Bonnie's back. They were done after that, and though she'd had a smidgen of worry when it came to whether Damon still had feelings for his ex, he ultimately proved his loyalty and remained by her side.

She and Elena, however, had grown apart as a result, and they only saw each other through the events of mutual friends like Caroline and Alaric. At those events, both Bonnie and Damon were the bare minimum of cordial to her. Yet despite their strained relationship, Elena still invited them to the wedding when she found the third love of her life, and at Caroline's insistence, they attended. There, Elena tried to smooth things over with them, and Bonnie played nice while Damon deferred to her on the matter, not caring to be at the wedding or associate with Elena after the way she treated Bonnie.

They ended up not staying long. The ceremony had fortunately started on time and been short. She and Damon politely sat near the back, watched, and five minutes into the reception, they said their congratulations and left. Needless to say, it'd been pointless to go because nothing really changed after that. It remained awkward whenever they saw each other, and it was still awkward for Bonnie now. But that wasn't the only reason Bonnie wanted to avoid her.

Aside from reminding her of her future betrayal, seeing Elena also reminded Bonnie of how much her life had revolved around hers. That fact alone made her want to stay away from her, but that's not how things went. Bonnie had been willing to sacrifice everything for her and everyone else in Mystic Falls, and knowing she would have to pretend like she was okay with that reignited long-forgotten feelings of resentment.

She followed the doppelganger into the sitting room where the lawyer stood with the documents in hand. The brothers stood nearby, and Stefan said hello to her first. Bonnie responded, but her eyes brushed over his to land on Damon beside him. "Morning witchy," he said. His blue eyes zeroed in on hers, and every thought regarding Elena was gone. That tension inside her once again unwound a bit at the sight of him and the sound of his voice, but a desire to be closer coiled inside of her. It was as if she could feel every inch of space between them, and it was a conscious effort on her part not to move closer.

"Good morning." Her hand went to her hair, running through it to make sure nary a curl was out of place. She shifted on her feet.

When he looked away from her and towards Elena, she frowned, but allowed herself a glance at the rest of him. Her eyes ran down today's outfit. Not her favorite leather jacket of his, but her eyes lingered on the way the black shirt under the jacket spread across his chest just enough to hint at the muscle underneath. Her fingers itched to touch those muscles, to feel them twitch under her fingertips as she ran her hands across them, up his pectorals and around his neck as she buried her face in his warm chest. And as she did so, she would feel those strong arms would gently wrap around her in kind, his chin brushing against her temple ever so lightly.

Her chest tightened at the memory of being in his arms, and she raised her gaze to his face where he was still watching Elena talk with the lawyer.

Her chest tightened further, and her frown deepened.

"We'll be outside while you sign the papers," Stefan said, motioning for his brother to follow him.

They both left the house, closing the door behind them, and while the lawyer instructed Elena on where to sign, Bonnie wandered the rooms of the first floor. The heels of her short black boots clicked against the oakwood as she walked through the kitchen and back into the living room. Coming to a standstill in the center of the room, her fingers brushed along the sofa that held so many good memories.

She and Damon had watched many a movie there, and Bonnie had fallen asleep on him an inordinate amount of times. Whenever that would happen, he'd carry her up to her room or let her sleep on him until he fell asleep himself. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel his lips brushing her forehead as he lifted her from the sofa, and her arms moving around his neck as she, half asleep, snuggled closer to him, burying her nose into his neck and inhaling the heady masculine scent of him.

Later, this would be one of the many places they had sex, but before her mind could wander into that dangerous territory, Elena called her name.

Bonnie returned to the sitting room and saw both brothers back inside the house. Elena started putting on her jacket.

"Wait, where are you going?" Stefan asked her.

"To school," Elena said as if it were obvious.

"Huh?" Stefan looked at her like she was dumb, and Damon held a similar expression though his had a tinge of exasperation.

"No, no, no. We didn't create a safehouse for you to leave it," the elder brother protested.

"Yeah, guys," Stefan made a disapproving expression towards both Elena and Bonnie, then turned to look at his brother as if to ask whether he could believe that she was saying this.

Damon also furrowed his brow with a wry look, but he conceded despite his disapproval. "Your way, Elena."

The way they both fussed over her irked Bonnie, and she folded her arms across her chest again. "Stop worrying. You're forgetting that if Klaus shows his face, I'm well equipped to handle him." Damon looked at her then and she met his gaze with a raise of her eyebrows, daring him to challenge her. He opened his mouth to say something, but Elena beat him to it.

"The way I see it, next to Bonnie is the safest place that I can be," she said.

Before either brother could respond, both girls turned to leave with the younger brother trailing after them. "Wait. I'm coming."

* * *

The first day back at school was surreal. She never imagined being a high schooler again, but the familiarity of it all was comforting in a way. School gave her something separate to focus on aside from the impeding confrontation with Klaus and everything else she was refusing to think about.

It was livelier than she remembered. There were so many people inside the parking lot and the building, so many familiar faces she once knew. Walking behind Stefan and Elena, she marveled at the environment like a tourist until they split from her and she had to find her locker.

Surprisingly, her memory of its location was clearer than she expected it to be, though she'd always remembered it was two doors down from Caroline's, and the blonde was already just down the hall, turning the dial on her own padlock.

At the sight of Caroline, a burst of happiness spread inside her chest. Seeing her best friend again put a genuine smile on her face. She was reaching into her locker when Bonnie came up beside her. The blonde vampire had barely turned towards Bonnie before she had her arms wrapped around her in a hug.

Wordlessly, Caroline squeezed her back, then let go. "God, I needed that. Between Matt finding out about vampires, then compelling him to forget about finding out about vampires _and_ having to organize this dance, I've been struggling to keep it together."

"Care, even when you're not on top of things, you're on top of things. It's all going to come together." Bonnie opened up her own locker easily, surprising herself again with how she remembered the code. It had to be the memories of her younger self. It seemed everything she had once known up until the point she returned was still at the forefront of her mind, but beyond that point, her memories of her past or rather the immediate future, remained vague.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Caroline closed her locker, adjusting the strap of the backpack on her shoulder. Her blue-green eyes assessed her, reminding Bonnie of future Caroline, of the way she had looked at her when she came into her house and found her a disheveled mess after losing Damon. Some things never changed. "And what about you? Are you doing alright?"

"A little bit on edge, but I'm fine," she reassured.

Caroline nodded and glanced back down at Bonnie's outfit. "You look cute today, by the way."

"Thanks." Bonnie tugged at the edge of the long dark purple cardigan she wore over a simple black jersey dress, the only simple black dress she owned. It was a travesty, really. Nothing in her closet suited her tastes anymore. It had taken her half an hour to find something she even remotely liked.

"Do you have your outfit for the dance yet?" Caroline asked her.

Her smile faltered. Right, the sixties themed Decades Dance was coming up. "No, you?"

"I haven't had time to go shopping, but we should go this weekend. Make it a girls day or something."

"Sure." Bonnie agreed. Anything to take her mind off obsessing over Damon, worrying about the future, and keeping with the timeline. But at the same time, she knew she must've refused this proposal in the past before. Vaguely, she remembered getting a sixties themed dress from the thrift store on her own, but it shouldn't hurt to get a dress with Caroline instead, right?

As she was trying to convince herself the small change wouldn't matter, Elena and Stefan joined them from across the hall. "Did I hear something about shopping?"

"We're going shopping for dance this weekend. Are you coming with?" Caroline asked her.

Elena eyed Stefan who was obviously against the idea, then leaned into him. "Stefan was going to let me borrow something form some of his relatives' clothes he has stashed in the attic. But yeah, I'll tag along." Her boyfriend looked on with disapproval, probably thinking it was already bad enough that he'd agreed to let her come to school.

But she batted her doe eyes at him, and like putty in her hands, he caved. "Fine."

She grinned brightly, rewarding him with a kiss on the cheek. The corner of his mouth turned upward and he looked down on her with affection. It was strange to watch them be that way when the Stefan Bonnie knew was hopelessly in love with Caroline. She had forgotten how much he and Elena had once cared for one another, and how good they'd actually been for each other.

"So looking forward to some normal quality girl time. How's everything with Jenna by the way?" Caroline asked her.

Elena pursed her lips, her expression falling. "Still not good. She's still mad at me and Alaric for lying about Isobel being alive, and Alaric's been keeping his distance."

"I'm sure she'll come around." Caroline said, then she looked at the clock just as the bell rang. "Better get to class." She waved, disappearing down the hall.

Bonnie waved back and turned to walk in the opposite direction, leaving Stefan and Elena staring after her in the middle of the hallway. "Um, where are you going?" Elena asked her.

A few paces away from them, Bonnie stopped in her tracks and turned around. "What?"

Stefan tilted his head, regarding her with an arched eyebrow. "We all have math together."

She put on a sheepish smile. "Right, I completely spaced." It was odd. If she thought about her schedule, she could remember it, but a second ago, the only thing she'd been thinking about was acting like she knew where she was going.

Elena smiled at her. "Happens to the best of us," she said as she took Stefan's hand.

They walked ahead of her, and Bonnie's smile fell at their backs. She followed behind them, her hands resting on the straps of her bag as they moved through the slowly dissipating crowd of students headed to class.

* * *

The novelty of being back in high school wore off quick after the first homework assignment was assigned and she realized she would have to keep up her grades in the midst of the Klaus drama. Bonnie wondered how she was able to do it the first time around. It had to be nothing short of a miracle that she even managed to get through this year and the next.

School wasn't the only thing she had to focus on though. Her natural magic was sorely lacking, reduced to the raw state it'd been in when she was seventeen. In order to effectively use it, she needed to get it back up to the level it was before she time traveled into the past. Especially since her preferred type of magic was the traditional kind. Other forms of magic like sacrificial, representative, or even connective magic required more reliance on outside sources of energy. And relying on ancestral magic in particular was a recipe for disaster because the whims of dead witches changed with the wind. It was far better to be self reliant. Natural, traditional magic could be powerful if you had the magical energy to expend on it. Qetsiyah was a prime example of that, and Bonnie had at least reached the same level if not beyond that in the future. She needed to get back to it. There were some techniques and exercises she'd learned over the years to expand her magical capabilities and reach her latent potential, so Bonnie set out to do those after school every day, but she ran into an unexpected problem.

Whenever she tried to meditate, it was too hard to concentrate with the harnessed magic covering her own like a second layer. By Wednesday, she gave up on the endeavor, resolving to try again after she expended the last of the magic to bring Jeremy back from the dead.

In the meantime, she focused on getting ahead in her studies, spending time after school at The Grill, and trying to avoid and not avoid Jeremy at the same time. He wanted her to tell Elena about her possibly dying if she used the witches' magic to kill Klaus, and Bonnie was adamantly against it, putting them at odds with one another. As long as they were fighting about that, it was an easy excuse to not be around him.

On Friday afternoon, she was at The Grill for the third time that week. Jeremy was off, but Matt was working his shift and Caroline had come to visit him. She watched the two interact, Matt a bit stiffer than usual, and Bonnie knew that he still remembered Caroline was a vampire. It was a wonder Caroline hadn't noticed something was off with him, but then again, who would if they weren't looking for the signs. Matt was like her, pretty good at acting like everything was okay when it wasn't. She stared at them, trying not to let her attention go to the bar where she could sense her other half, but her efforts were futile.

Admittedly, he was the other reason she came to The Grill more often than she used to. Damon often frequented the place, whether it was to have drinks alone, with Alaric, or to find his next meal. Recently, it was more of the former two activities and while she did her homework, she would occasionally steal a glance or two at him. Okay, it was more than a glance or two, but it was hard enough ignoring the pull to approach him. Somehow, she thought the intensity of being drawn to him would fade the more she saw him, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Every time, she would continue to feel that tension she carried loosen followed by a tug in his direction in tandem with an overwhelming sense of longing. She never experienced this before, but she wondered if maybe it had something to do with the bond Prairie had felt between her and Damon even after he'd been killed. Maybe there was more of a physicality behind it than she thought.

Her gaze raised to the bar where the object of her thoughts was drinking away, seated beside Alaric who, somewhere between this day and the dance next Friday, would get kidnapped and become possessed by Klaus. She resisted the urge to look back beside Alaric and planted her eyes back on the biology textbook in front of her. But Damon continued to distract her, her eyes going to him every once in a while, but more than usual. And every time she looked back at her biology textbook, the words on the page began to blur together as her thoughts went to remembering the better days of her life with him.

She couldn't help but wallow in the feelings those memories wrought, in the longing that stretched from heart to mind. She let herself feel it, let her chest tighten again because she missed him, because he was so close and yet so far, but she had enough sense not to become too overemotional. She had cried long and hard over losing him once and that was enough. So she merely let herself feel, and reminded herself that he would be hers again.

At that thought, she glanced in his direction once more, but this time he looked back. Bonnie's head snapped back down at her book, and she hoped against all odds that he hadn't just caught her staring. But the next time she looked up, Alaric was gone from the bar, and Damon was seated across from her. Having him so near with his full attention abated a small fraction of the pull she felt towards him, but it caused her heartbeat to speed up. She sat straighter and openly stared into his silvery blue eyes, looking as if he was bothering her because, really, he was, even if she liked him sitting across from her.

"Did you need something?" She asked him, twirling her pencil around her finger, a picture of calm.

"Did you?" He leaned forward, and her eyes flicked down to the glass in his left hand, probably filled with bourbon. "Or were you just admiring my good looks?"

Bonnie changed the subject, not answering his question because as much as she was tempted to play that game, it was a slippery slope. "Any Klaus news?" She asked him instead.

"Nope." He looked at her pointedly. "It'd be nice if we had someone who could witchy woo his location out of thin air."

His words cut at her. They were a distinct reminder that she was a tool to him, a means to an end, and playful sarcasm or not, his ungrateful attitude once again grated on her nerves. "Do you want me to waste the magic on finding Klaus or do you want me to be able to kill him?" Her tone was sharp enough to make him lean back in his seat.

His, on the other hand, was light, but his eyebrows had risen a centimeter, then lowered, a small divot appearing in the center of his forehead. "The latter would be preferable."

"That's what I thought." Bonnie didn't bother to hide the indignation in her voice.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed today."

She lost her frown a bit and sighed. "If you didn't have a reason for coming over here, then now would be the time to leave." She ran a hand through her curls and looked back down at the book in front of her. Her fingers moved back down to her temples, and she massaged at them for a second before leaning her head into her hand. Damon ignored the invitation to leave her alone.

"You look stressed."

Bonnie's eyes darted back up to his. "With everything that's going on, aren't you?"

"That's what this is for." He lifted the glass of alcohol. His smile widened mischievously. "Want some?" He offered, the dare plain in his eyes.

He didn't expect her to take it from him. Bonnie was the goody-two shoes one, the straight-laced one. He had offered only to make her uncomfortable.

She rolled the corner of her lips between her teeth as her eyes moved down to the glass then back up at him.

_Trying to corrupt me?_ The words, the flirtation was on the tip of her tongue, and she reached for the glass, stopping just short of brushing his fingers. Instead, she retracted her hand back to rest on the table. As she did, she watched the intrigue pass over his face and sat back in her seat.

"I shouldn't," she said. It was a bad idea to mess with his expectations of her. That aside, she definitely never had this conversation with Damon in the past, and she shouldn't be having it now. She needed to keep her distance from him. But it was too late, the damage was already done in the mere act of reaching for it.

He leaned forward, eyes running down to her chest and back up before taking on a hooded look with something akin to playfulness, and the way his voice lowered slid straight under her skin. "You know, there are _other_ ways to de-stress."

Did he just…? Heat spread across her cheeks as she tried not to think about what he meant, but images of them yet to come flashed in her head, of him on top of her, sliding his perfect dick inside her with pure, unadulterated need in dilated blue eyes. Her heartbeat picked up speed again, warmth spreading low in her stomach. She thumbed the edge of her notebook and planted a frown on her face, but her attempt to appear unaffected didn't entirely succeed. She was certain he could sense the blood that had risen to her cheeks and hear the way her heart rate had risen if he'd been listening for it.

She held his gaze and blinked.

The proposition wasn't entirely serious, she knew. Could tell from the look in his eyes that he wanted a reaction more than anything, but if she said yes, he probably wouldn't be adverse to actually following through. And god was she tempted to say yes despite him being an asshole earlier. "Don't you have somewhere you need to be, something you need to be doing?" She said, trying to get him to leave again.

After a split second's hesitation, he took the cue this time, standing up, and just like that the moment was gone. His smirk, however, was still wide, letting her know that he had been listening. "Later, judgey. Let me know if you change your mind."

As soon as he was gone, she mumbled a curse under her breath, noticing he left the tumbler on the table. She picked it up, and downed the rest, the brown liquid running down smooth and warming her insides. She rested her head in both hands. What was she doing? None of that had happened in the past. She couldn't let herself get caught up in the moment like that again.

She bit her lip, spreading her hands across the textbook in front of her. One little conversation wouldn't completely change the future though, would it? Was the butterfly effect still a thing? With Bonnie already not remembering everything exactly, this was the sort of questioning she didn't like to think about. But she was imagining it now, and maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to have a back up plan in case things somehow went to shit.

* * *

The weekend came and Bonnie went shopping with Elena and Caroline. They handled their outfits for the Decades Dance first, heading to the thrift store to search for something with a sixties vibe. Bonnie found the same dress she had worn before, but her eyes were drawn to a white shirt dress with black polka dots hanging from another rack. When Caroline saw her holding it up to herself in the mirror, she practically ordered her to try it on. It fit pretty well and flattered her shape, tapering in around her waist and flaring out from the hip with the hem stopping at her knees. Both Caroline and Elena approved when they saw and she bought that dress instead of the one she'd originally worn.

Caroline, on the other hand, wasn't having any luck looking for a Jackie-O-esque suit that fit her taller frame, so they ended up at the mall after Bonnie purchased the dress and a few other things from the thrift store.

While they were in the mall, Bonnie had no intentions of buying anything else, but when she was brushing her fingers along a pretty red sundress, Elena coerced her to try it on, and Bonnie, loving the dress, gave in. Things turned into a bit of a shopping spree after that, and Bonnie took full advantage of her father's credit card.

Elena tried to help her choose as Caroline perused the racks to look for her dance outfit, but Bonnie often ended up choosing things Elena didn't expect. In the future, Caroline had once called her style sophisticated dark feminine chic with a hint of vintage flare, but what she felt like wearing outside of her job often changed on the daily and didn't always fit into that box. She did love a good suit though, but she tried to keep in mind that she was still in high school and stayed away from the blazers and pencil skirts, regretfully ignoring a beautiful Calvin Klein suit that'd been calling her name. Instead, she brought dark, saturated, not so modest tops, dresses, form fitting skirts and jeans that hugged her ass just right. And slowly, every time she bought something, she felt more and more like herself.

The whole thing was therapeutic, and Bonnie could honestly say she enjoyed hanging out with both Caroline and Elena. Once she allowed herself to let go of some the anger she still harbored towards Elena, she was able to genuinely smile with both of them more than she thought she'd be able to, and somehow, despite the threat of Klaus hanging over their heads, they enjoyed themselves as if everything was normal.

She treasured the moment. Times likes these between all three of them were nonexistent in the future. And being around Elena like this reminded her of why they'd been friends in the first place. It didn't help though, that in the back of her mind, she was worried. Throughout their time together, as they pretended like the original vampire wasn't after Elena's life, Bonnie still contemplated ways to make sure she didn't derail the timeline or to fix it if she did.

When they were done, Bonnie dropped Caroline at home, then swung by the boarding house to do the same for Elena. Stefan was there to meet her at the door, giving Bonnie a curt nod before they both disappeared inside. As she got out of the car, Bonnie had told Elena that she was going to go home, but that was a lie. She headed off in a different direction, towards Wickery Bridge where Elena's parents had died.

Bonnie's main problem was her lack of memory regarding the past. The obvious fix-it to her problem would have been to find a memory spell that would allow her to remember her past with accuracy. The day before, however, after going to The Grill, she'd searched through the grimoires she'd procured from the Martins as well as the ones she already had, and they turned up nothing. The only spell of the sort she found had something to do with accessing the memories of her bloodline which wasn't exactly what she was looking for and required the blood of three generations, impossible ingredients for Bonnie to acquire. If only she'd paid more attention to the ingredients Prairie had used in the herbal drink she gave her to heighten her memories, she might've been able to alter the spell to suit her needs, but then again maybe not. Experimenting with spells wasn't exactly a good idea at the moment, especially if those spells involved messing with the mind.

With wariness towards using her own magic because of the witches also being a problem, it hadn't taken Bonnie long to think of just what she needed as an alternate insurance policy against the future veering off course and it would be so easy to get it. Being the only one who had knowledge of its existence was an advantage she hadn't expected, and with it, she could honestly end Klaus the moment he came into town. Killing him wasn't an option at all though, not when his sire line included Damon, Caroline, and Stefan, and his death would result in theirs. But Klaus, as far as she knew, didn't know that, and if push came to shove, she could always threaten to kill Elijah who was still daggered in the basement of the boarding house or any of his other siblings once they were in play.

Bonnie pulled her car over to the side of the road beside the old bridge.

One day, in the near future, it would be set on fire by one of the Originals to prevent anyone from being able to use it because it was made from the same white oak that was a part of the spell to create the Originals.

Consequently, it was the only thing that could kill them.

The bridge wasn't all wood though. It was mainly the railing and the underpinnings, and the only other thing made of wood was the sign marking it.

If she remembered correctly, it was the sign Damon had used to make the white oak stakes after Rebekah had burned the bridge down. It was probably best to leave that intact, so she chose to use a piece of the railing instead. Closing her eyes, she placed her hands on the wood and imagined it severing in the space between her palms. Instead of her own magic, she could hear the witches still whispering on the wind, wondering as their power assisted her in her efforts. When the wood cracked and a small part of the railing snapped off, Bonnie blocked off the witches from her mind again and carried the piece of the railing back to her car. After she returned home, she put her huntress skills to use and used some of her father's old tools to manually saw it into smaller pieces. She spent some time carving the pieces into stakes, took one to keep close at hand, and decided to hide the rest in places throughout Mystic Falls. This, at least, gave Bonnie a little peace of mind.

And hopefully, it would be enough for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: 
> 
> Thanks for reading and a late Happy New Year to everyone!
> 
> Chapter title from "Feel it All" by Feist.


	6. With You, I'm in Warm Water Swimming Down

Mid-week before the dance, Alaric began to act strange. Bonnie knew what was up, that Klaus was possessing him, so she only had to wait for him to start making moves. Knowing who he was, it was strange watching him try to pretend to be their history teacher, almost amusing actually. It was obvious he had no idea what he was doing, but he somehow finessed his way through class, a thousand years of knowledge at the back of his hand proving to be useful in making anecdotes on the fly. Even so, being an actual teacher clearly wasn't his forte. Some of the things he'd said made Bonnie want to snort, but she sat there like a good little student, pretending to listen and ignoring whenever his stare would wind up in her direction.

Notwithstanding class with Klaus, the rest of the week passed in a blur until the Friday of the dance. Her day started off normal with no drama whatsoever, and she got through her morning classes, turning in some of her homework early, much to the delight of her teachers.

In the afternoon, however, when lunch time came, she was met by Jeremy in the hallway. She put a small smile on her face as he approached her and grabbed his hand. "Lunch together?" She asked, trying to be as girlfriend-y as possible.

He nodded in response, a pensive look on his face.

Uh oh. She resisted the urge to sigh. Bonnie knew that look. Another argument was incoming. Things had been strained between them for the past couple of days. Her possibly dying from using the witches' power did not sit well with him, and he'd made that abundantly clear multiple times. Bonnie personally had enough of him playing the overbearing boyfriend, so she remained quiet, waiting for him to rehash the subject again.

His lunch tray hit the table and he sat across from her, staring. They were alone at the table, and Bonnie avoided his stare, picking at the food on her tray. It was chicken patty sandwich day, and the chicken patties weren't that great. The fries, however, were actually delicious. She ate a bit until he finally spoke.

"Did you tell Elena what it's going to take for you to do that Klaus spell?"

She raised her gaze to his. This was the third time he'd asked this week. "No, and you're still not going to tell her either," she said coolly.

"Well, she's gotta know you can't do it."

"I can and I will. Have some faith, Jeremy. I'm not that weak." She popped a fry into her mouth.

"You told me they said it would kill you."

She gave him a hard look. "Only if I used too much of it at once. And you promised to keep this a secret. I'm trusting you. I'm going through with this, and if you tell anyone, I…" She trailed off into silence as there was nothing she could really threaten him with. If he told someone, if he went back on his promise, all she could do was be upset with him.

He must have realized this too as he leaned further into the table, closer to her, intent on challenging her for once. "What? What are you gonna do?" He pushed.

His frustration was palpable, and it made her want to sigh again. Bless his heart for caring about her so much. It was a shame that he ended up doing what he did to ruin their relationship, but Bonnie could see why her younger self had taken him back. She had wanted to be with somebody who cared about her, and at this point in time, Jeremy was the only guy she knew with a romantic interest in her that would accept her for who she was and hadn't been in an entanglement with Caroline or Elena.

And speaking of the devil, she had just walked up to their table with her own lunch tray in hand and took a seat. The tension diffused a bit at her arrival, and Jeremy leaned back. With something clearly on her mind, she was seemingly oblivious to the strained atmosphere between her little brother and best friend.

Elena turned her worried gaze on Jeremy first. "Hey Jer. How're you doing? Are you okay at the house alone with John?"

Her presence made him uncomfortable. "It's not ideal." Jeremy stood up, eyeing Bonnie with a look that Elena raised a brow at. He grabbed his tray.

"You haven't heard from Jenna, have you?" Elena asked before he could leave.

He answered quickly. "It looks like she's staying on campus." Shifting on his feet, his entire demeanor screamed that he wanted to be anywhere but there, having to lie by omission to his sister about how her best friend might die before the day is out. "Look, I'm…I'm late for class." He glanced at Bonnie one last time before somberly walking away, leaving the two girls alone at the table.

Elena watched her brother go with a frown. "What's going on with him?"

Bonnie shrugged. "I told him he had to dress up tonight and he got all uptight." She lied easily, eating another fry.

"Oh," Elena chuckled.

They chatted for a minute about class, but were interrupted when Dana came up to their table. She was another girl on the cheerleading team, but more of an acquaintance than a friend. As far as Bonnie knew, she had been helping Caroline a bit with organizing the dance, but something was off with her. There was a vacant, cheery look in her brown eyes as she spoke, and her smile was unsettling.

"This is going to sound freaky," she started in an upbeat voice, "but this totally hot guy just asked me to ask you if you're going to the dance tonight."

Elena and Bonnie shared a glance, Elena smiling and Bonnie not having any reaction at all.

"I have a boyfriend," Elena said, but she was so obviously flattered.

"You could at least meet him. He'll be at the dance tonight. Look for him. His name is Klaus."

Elena's smile fell into shock, but Bonnie just stared at Dana. She had undoubtedly been compelled to mess with them. The original hybrid always had a penchant for being dramatic.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Elena asked.

"She's probably been compelled," Bonnie voiced her thoughts aloud and took another bite of her fries. She supposed she should at least pretend to be more frightened or nervous, but Elena's attention was wholly on the other girl.

Unaware of her compulsion, Dana simply smiled. "He wants to know if you'll save him the last dance. How cute is that?" With her eerie grin, she turned to leave, her curled dark hair bouncing behind her as she pranced away, imperceptive of the distress she'd caused.

And Elena, rattled by the encounter, promptly pulled out her phone to notify her boyfriend.

* * *

Of course, after that, there was no way they were finishing the rest of their classes that day. Almost immediately, she, Elena, and Stefan left school to have an emergency meeting with Damon at the boarding house.

Stefan texted his brother before they got in their separate cars, letting him know that they were on their way, Elena riding with Stefan and Bonnie driving her own car. On the way, Elena also texted Alaric, and he sent a response saying he would see them soon.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the three of them arrived and entered the house together. Damon appeared as soon as the door shut, his game face on. As usual, Bonnie had to make an active effort not to let her stare linger on him.

"What are we going to do?" Elena nervously looked around the room.

"I don't think running is going to be an option," Stefan said.

"So we go to the dance. We find him." Damon proposed.

Stefan's brow furrowed. "Really? How are we going to do that? We don't even know what he looks like," he pointed out.

Damon shrugged. "Something tells me he's not going to be sixteen and pimply."

"He could be anywhere at any time. He compelled somebody at school." Elena was not quite over the earlier incident, and Bonnie couldn't blame her. Having anyone practically stalking you would be an uncomfortable experience, never mind an Original vampire who needed you to die in a ritual sacrifice.

Stefan gave her a look. "So I guess it's not as safe as you guys thought." The I-told-you-so was encased in every word.

There was a pause in the conversation as a knock sounded at the door. Alaric sauntered in, and half of Bonnie's attention moved to him. She narrowed her eyes inconspicuously, watching his every move.

"There you are," Damon said, completely unaware that he was actually talking to a thousand-year-old vampire-werewolf hybrid.

"Sorry I'm late."

"I need you to put me down as a chaperone at the dance tonight," Damon requested. "Klaus made his first move."

Alaric nodded, and the previous conversation resumed.

"Okay, so we find him and then what? What's our plan of attack?" Elena asked.

That should have been obvious. "Me. I'm the plan. I can channel the magical energy of a hundred witches. I can kill Klaus," Bonnie side-eyed Alaric.

The hybrid looked dubious. "That's not going to be that easy. I mean, he is the biggest, baddest vampire around."

Bonnie inwardly rolled her eyes at the exaggerated self-praise. Somebody really needed to put his ego in check.

"Alaric has a point," Damon said, his gaze trained on Bonnie. "I mean, what if he…"

Her hackles rose as Damon rushed at her, and her reaction was instant. She raised her hand, and with the power of the dead witches, she threw him onto the other side of the room before he could even get close. He landed behind the couch, using it to help him stand back up, a half-hearted glare on his face.

"Well, I was impressed," Stefan said.

Bonnie raised her chin. "I can handle it," she insisted, generally annoyed at the lack of confidence in her abilities.

"Alright then. We have the plan in place." Alaric was the first to go with the excuse of getting ready to chaperone, leaving Stefan, Damon, Elena, and Bonnie still in the boarding house. The Original had been rather eager to leave after her little display.

A moment later, Stefan and Elena disappeared off somewhere, leaving Bonnie and Damon alone in the living room. He was still by the couch and she stood across from him by a chair near the wall. They watched one another for a long moment before Bonnie straightened her posture. Yeah, it was time for her to get out of there.

"You know," Damon started, making her stop to turn around. "For a person that's so stressed, you seem pretty relaxed right now."

That made her raise a brow. She looked relaxed? She wouldn't exactly say she was relaxed, just sure of herself, sure of how things would turn out tonight at least. That didn't change the stress of having to relive these moments and the slight worry she had that something _might_ change, but all the pieces she remembered were falling into place.

He approached her, and she came up with a feasible explanation not too far from the truth.

"That's because I have faith in my abilities." She folded her arms across her chest as he stopped just outside of invading her space, raising her head to meet his stare. "Also, Damon, don't test me like that again."

"Or what?"

"Or you might find a limb missing," she warned, intending to leave it there. She figured antagonizing him a bit wouldn't hurt, but maybe she should've kept silent and left.

He did his little crazy eyes thing and lifted his brows. "Big threats. We both know without that power, you'd barely have a chance against me."

He was talking out of his ass and it grated on her nerves enough that, as careful as she'd been trying to be, Bonnie forgot herself, and the retort tumbled out. "Please. I could have you flat on your back in less than ten seconds."

Since she knew it to be true, her confidence was unbridled, and shock was the first thing she saw pass across his features. It was subtle, quick, but there until it faded into a dangerous gleam in his eyes. The corner of his lip pulled up into a smirk that told her exactly what direction his mind had gone. "I'd like to see you try little witch. Don't be so sure I wouldn't have you on yours."

She scoffed. "In your dreams, Salvatore."

He hummed, and sized her up for show. "How about right now?"

Ignoring the offer, she raked her eyes over him in kind with a look of mild annoyance and turned on her heels. "See you at the dance, Damon." She stretched her fingers in a wave, not bothering to glance back at him.

Though to know he was still looking, she didn't have to. She could feel his eyes burning holes into her back.

* * *

Five hours later, outside the dance, Bonnie brushed at the white collar of her dress while Jeremy pestered her about the whole dying thing again. It was annoyingly sweet how much he cared, and Bonnie, not for the first time, wished she could just explain that she knew she wasn't going to die. As he tried to give her his ring that protected him from supernatural death, she had a twinge of guilt.

"It doesn't work on someone who's supernatural," Bonnie explained.

He looked distressed. "Well, I have to do something. I can't just…I can't just let you get yourself killed."

"The witches gave me a warning. A warning doesn't mean I'm going to die."

"So you're saying there's a 50-50 shot you won't? Look, I'm sorry. But…you know I don't have the best luck in the girlfriend department."

"I'll be fine." Her gaze softened, and she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He grabbed her hand in his and squeezed it, but Bonnie became distracted.

Behind him, she caught Damon watching them as he walked in, knowing he had heard their conversation. He disappeared inside.

Elena and Stefan arrived seconds later, and after greeting one another, they all headed into the gymnasium together, catching up with Damon. The moment that happened, Dana made an announcement over the speaker. Klaus had creepily dedicated some song to Elena.

Accordingly, the knowledge that the Original was already slinking about amplified everyone's overall anxiety, and their little group stood near the entrance, their gazes roaming around the packed gym while they further discussed how to handle the situation.

With no way to find him, the plan became to blend in and let Klaus come to them, so Bonnie dragged a reluctant Jeremy off onto the dance floor. From where she was, her eyes moved around the room. She saw Caroline walking in, clueless to everything that was going on, but Stefan and Elena had seen them come in as well, and Stefan was already leaving Elena to make his way towards Caroline.

The doppelganger stood there for but a moment before Damon took Stefan's place as her dance partner, and Bonnie watched the way he danced with her, the smile on his face, the smile that came to her face, the way she laughed at whatever he was saying.

It pricked at something inside her, and the envy ambushed her, tore through her. The strength of the emotion surged into her magic, causing it to release without her consent. The power flickered inside the entire high school, and murmurs passed through the crowd as everyone in the gym raised their heads to look at the lights. She needed to rein herself in.

"That was strange." Jeremy said, his gaze slow to lower from the ceiling after the lights came back on.

Bonnie looked away from him, magic crackling under her skin as she pushed it down. "Must have been a shortage."

Thankfully, no one seemed interested in talking about the flickering lights for long, and she stopped torturing herself by watching the other couple. Instead, she leaned her head onto Jeremy's shoulder. They continued slow dancing, and his arms tightened around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She tried not to stiffen against him.

A minute or so later, she could sense the moment Damon started to approach, sense that same pull, the force of it growing less and less the closer he came to them. She turned to meet his icy eyes, darker in the lighting of the gym and set on her.

"May I?" He asked with a cursory glance at Jeremy.

Jeremy looked at Damon, then at Bonnie, only moving out of the way when she nodded.

He walked off, and as soon as he was gone, the elder Salvatore took in her polka dot shirt dress, but his expression as he did so was hard to read. It was contemplative, though what he was contemplating she could only guess at.

Eyes flicking back up to hers, he stepped towards her, raising his hands. She raised hers to his, and they touched. A spark ran through her palms.

With how much she longed to be close to him, she thought this moment, the moment they touched, would bring a sense of relief, but she was wrong. On the contrary, the longing multiplied tenfold. A desire to press against him crawled beneath her skin, and she barely suppressed a shiver. Ironically, the physical contact only made the space between them more perceivable, only illuminated the deep chasm between them that made her heart ache for the intimacy they once shared, and the ache only worsened when their fingers intertwined as they began to dance, and a small steady current ran through her palms.

The look in his eyes wasn't helping anything either. Though cold, it exacerbated everything. It reminded her of the last time they'd danced at one of the many pretentious galas she'd been required to attend for work reasons. Then, in his arms, his gaze had been warm, a clear ocean blue under a sunny sky. Endlessly, she could swim in it, find comfort in it, but the way he stared at her now was so far from that. His eyes were frozen over, and all she wanted to do was break the ice and drown.

Despite the turn her thoughts had taken, she had enough wherewithal to make sure nothing on her face betrayed her inner turmoil, though she wondered what he would make of it if he could see. Most likely, he would probably attribute it to the conversation he heard earlier, to her being troubled over the possibility of dying. The truth would be inconceivable to him.

"You look pretty tonight, very 1960s housewife." He broke her thoughts with the compliment, the corner of his mouth upturned despite the serious look in his eyes.

She buried a smile. The last thing she expected from him was a compliment and it made her a little suspicious. "What are you buttering me up for?"

He shrugged. "Just making an observation."

"Hmm," she hummed. Staring at him, she bit the inside of her lip, then let it go, tilting her head to the side. "And does it suit me, the housewife look?" She shouldn't have asked after their earlier conversation, but she was too curious to hear his answer.

Surprise flitted across his face at the question. His eyes dipped down her body as he spun her and pulled her closer. Close enough that the hand not holding his landed on his shoulder, and his went to her waist. His head lowered a little, and her waist warmed under the fabric at his touch. Her breath hitched. An inch closer and her body would be flush against his. An inch closer and she could start to fill that aching chasm. She suppressed another shiver. "I won't lie. If this were the 1960s and I was hungry, I'd probably be tempted to eat you."

There was a smirk on his lips, but he spoke in a matter of fact way with a nonchalance made her roll her eyes. "I'm flattered," her voice dripped with sarcasm.

But his gaze flicked down to her lips, painted red to match the belt cinching in her waist, and his smirk faltered, and she was no longer sure he was just thinking about drinking her blood.

Her hand on his shoulder moved closer to his neck, lightly brushing along the leather of his jacket. _And are you tempted now?_ she wanted to ask, but the words died on the tip of her tongue, or rather she killed them. Flirting was bad. Flirting was forbidden. She reproached herself for even asking the question she did, but the implications of his answer made her wonder.

Damon clearly found her attractive. He'd admitted he'd always thought so in the future. And even if he was messing with her, he was making it known far earlier than expected. But just how attractive did this Damon find her? How hard would it be to turn his head away from Elena and completely onto her? How much effort would it take to prematurely seduce his heart into her hands _permanently_?

Then and there, while they danced, she imagined how she would start. It would have be subtle of course. A step closer with every movement, a lingering press of her body against his. She would lean a little too close when they talked, invade his space the way he liked to invade hers, but pretend she hadn't noticed to make him question whether he was imagining things. Then she would find whatever excuse she could to touch him.

But wait. That would be far too obvious, wouldn't it?

No, instead, she would make him want to find any excuse to touch _her._

An insuppressible shiver ran through her at the thought of that, of him needing her so badly that he couldn't keep his hands off of her. It would really be no different than the way he'd acted as her husband, but she missed that feeling of being wanted, of being so submerged in his love that every touch bred a deep intimacy.

She was biting her lip when her eyes found his again and Damon was looking at her with a peculiar expression.

"What?" she asked. He led her into another spin, meeting the hand that was on his shoulder with his so he held both of her hands, their fingers interlocked together. She swayed in opposite directions with him.

He blinked. "There's been something different about you lately, but I can't quite put my finger on what." That comment made her nervous.

"Well, don't hurt your pretty little head trying to figure it out."

His eyebrows rose and he fake gasped into a grin, showing teeth. "You think I'm pretty?"

Okay. She needed to get this conversation back on track. "Is there a reason why you asked to dance with me?"

Regrettably, the grin left his face. "I heard you and Jeremy talking earlier."

"And?"

Releasing one of her hands, he spun her out once more, then turned her into him so her back was to his chest. "And is the whole 50-50 shot thing true?" She held back a sigh and closed her eyes, sinking her weight into him as he rocked them back and forth. This was what she had missed. Him being wrapped around her. Yet still, she wanted to be closer. His face had leaned against hers as he spoke, and she raised her head towards his, seeking more skin to skin contact as she let her cheek brush against his jawline. It was just a little though, just enough to let him think it wasn't intentional, just enough to let the tingles to spread across her neck, and just enough for warmth to slide down her spine at the feel of him pressed against her.

Well, so much for not finding any excuse to touch him. She only hoped that he couldn't tell she was trying to take advantage of the moment.

"I just didn't want him to worry," Bonnie finally said when she remembered she was supposed to speak.

"So you lay it on the line for Elena, no matter what."

The way he said it, like it was an expectation that she give up her life for Elena, brought her down from the high of being near him. But she still agreed with him because she recalled how this conversation went and knew she was supposed to. "No matter what." He twisted her out again so she faced him, and all that warmth was swept over by a cold that racked her body. Bonnie pulled herself back closer to him.

"Good."

"I trust you won't tell Elena."

"Your secret's safe with me." His voice lowered, and he leaned towards her with a conspiratorial smile. "But with all that power, is there no way to increase your odds?" They rocked and he twirled her slowly once more so that his arm was wrapped around her neck. She rewarded him with a small smile of her own, gripping his hand a little tighter.

"Careful Damon, I might start to think you actually care."

He smirked. "We wouldn't want that." He spun her back out and then pulled her close once more. Bonnie would blame gravity for the way she inched closer, her thumb brushing against his, but she didn't dare close little bit of space between them no matter how much she craved to. She was already pushing her limits.

"I'm open to whatever ideas you might have."

He tilted his head in acknowledgement. "If I think of anything, I'll let you know."

His eyes dipped to her red lips again which curled ever so slightly. She stared up at him as his hand slowly loosened from around hers.

They stopped dancing, and with distance between them again, that cold ache returned, but she stood there, keeping her expression neutral as they both walked away.

* * *

After Jeremy spilled the beans about Bonnie possibly dying, the fun began. Elena was confronting Bonnie outside when Alaric walked up to them, claiming Klaus had Jeremy. He led them inside, and Elena, sensing something was off, shared an odd look with Bonnie. They questioned him, and Alaric did his dramatic reveal that he was actually Klaus and their vampire hunting history teacher had been possessed by the thousand-year-old hybrid all along.

Bonnie faked her surprise, but Elena's was real. Then Klaus proclaimed he wasn't there to kill Elena, but Bonnie.

In the hallway, he took a step towards her to attack, but Bonnie used her magic to push him back against the wall. He landed in a nearby display case and fell to the ground laughing like the psychopath he was. He said something else, but whatever it was faded on the wind as she and Elena ran away from him.

They were hurrying through the halls when Damon appeared out of nowhere.

"What happened?" He asked them.

"Klaus is in Alaric's body," Elena explained.

"What!?" That was probably the last thing Damon expected her to say.

"He's possessing him," Bonnie said.

Damon ordered Elena to go find Stefan, then turned towards Bonnie.

"Can you kill him?"

She shook her head. "He's got some kind of protection spell on him."

"You have the power of a hundred witches. Break it."

Bonnie shook her head again. "If I kill Alaric, Klaus will just possess someone else. He knows I have my power, and he's trying to kill me. He's not after Elena right now."

Damon clenched his jaw, his features determined. "Klaus does not get to win tonight. You still willing to do whatever it takes to kill him?"

She nodded.

"Okay. I know a spell."

So they wouldn't be disturbed, he led her off into one of the classrooms and began to teach it to her. It was a simple spell, one for suspended animation, and committing it to memory took little effort on her part. When she asked, Damon wouldn't tell her how he knew the spell or why he knew it, but she was grateful that in this moment, he wanted to save her, even if his motive was to outsmart Klaus.

And outsmart him, they did.

Bonnie successfully carried out their plan in a whirlwind of events where she could feel herself going through the motions, the memories becoming clearer in her mind as she experienced them in reality, and just as she was supposed to, she faked her death, fooling the hybrid.

The next time she woke up, Bonnie was in the basement of the old witch house. Jeremy was the only one with her, and when he saw her awake, he pulled her into a hug. She returned it lightly with an awkward tap on his back before he pulled away, heartfelt joy in his eyes.

He moved back to remove a laptop from his bag, setting it up so Bonnie could apologize to Elena for letting her think she was dead, but while Elena experienced emotional relief, Bonnie's reaction didn't quite match hers. It was bordering on distant, and she noticed.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I'm just tired."

Elena gave her a worried frown. "Okay. Talk soon then?"

Bonnie forced herself to smile. "Sure."

Not long after she hung up, the guilt began to creep up on her again. It was always there, from the moment she realized she would be stuck in the past for a while, from the moment she realized she would be letting things play out as they were supposed to. But the problem was that in playing her part, what she was doing was the equivalent of doing nothing, and it was coming easier than she expected. That easiness was where most of the guilt stemmed from, and considering the coming events, she feared it would only get worse.

She turned over in her sleeping bag, trying to get some sleep after she finally convinced Jeremy to leave, wishing she had a drink to dull the way she was beginning to feel because her thoughts were growing far too loud in her head.

Mainly, it was Jenna's coming death that was beginning to weigh on her mind. John's not so much because he volunteered his life, and at this point, his death was unavoidable to guarantee Elena surviving the ritual. Jenna, however, was turned against her will and used as a vampire for Klaus to sacrifice in his ritual. He could've used any other vampire, turned any other person, and Bonnie could've bargained with him and possibly made it happen. But who was she to offer up someone else's life for Jenna's when she knew Jenna was supposed to die, that this had been her original fate?

She went back and forth in her head, trying to justify her actions until she grew too tired to think and laid in her sleeping bag, staring at the ceiling.

Two days. That was how long she had until this would all be over, until she wouldn't have to think about any of it for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hello you wonderful readers, I've been going crazy editing this, so I just decided to say I'm done and pray ya'll enjoy it lol.
> 
> As a side note, originally, this chapter did end up going to the end of S2E21, but I ended up chopping off the end so I could possibly insert a Damon POV chapter in the near future. I do want this story to be primarily about Bonnie, but I'm assuming an occasional check in with Damon's thoughts might be something people are interested in. If you do have an opinion on the matter, please let me know how you feel about it in the comments, and thanks for reading as always!
> 
> Chapter title from "Warm Water" by Banks.


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